Agree with all this 114%. Yet, I maintain, 'dissing the Woke' is a bad thing to do regardless. Anti-woke people need to constantly be on their guard to remember that the vast majority of Woke people have their hearts in the right place.
I get what you're saying but there's an important distinction to be made here. Hypocrisy, harassment, misrepresentation, sowing division, encouraging judgment almost as a way of life... these are not the behaviors of people who have their hearts in the right place. I agree though that the path they are walking is lined with good intentions.
And I don't mean that only in the snarky sense. The reason we need to recognize that they are well-intentioned is because we need to understand the nature of the problem in order to address it effectively. We are dealing with fools, not monsters. But we shouldn't give them even an inch of latitude because they are being foolish rather than monstrous. Because foolishness is the mother of monstrous outcomes.
John, I would say you're ignoring one traditional institution that has been *thoroughly* corrupted by the alt-right: the Republican Party. To many on the left, this might qualify as an afterthought, since we've viewed the Republicans as being corrupted by various flavors of dogmatic lunacy, illiberalism, and racial hostility for quite some time now. But never have they so thoroughly, publicly embraced such a nihilistic style of politics as they do today - as they essentially bow to the reality of being a personality cult which formally censures anyone who dares betray Dear Glorious Leader. Compare the party to five years ago and the difference is truly stark.
The far right is the bigger threat at the moment because they now constitute a controlling majority of one of our two major political parties. Most Republicans still believe that Biden won the election through massive fraud, despite there being no evidence to support this. And a disturbing number of them are becoming comfortable with the idea that using violence may be necessary to reclaim "the traditional American way of life". Make no mistake; right now we are between a rock and a hard place. The "woke" are a threat, but a less immediate one, because they do not control the Democratic party. In fact, many people who are sympathetic to their ideology on a surface level become much more alarmed when they read accounts of their excesses and realize that the devil is in the details. The majority of the party are reasonable people who are more and more beginning to awaken to the dangers of this new mindset. Are we safe enough to ignore them? Absolutely not, which is why it is good that we have folks like you and Bari Weiss manning the barricades, so to speak. But at the moment, the left is managing this threat, far better than the right did with their crazies, who have now become the Republican mainstream. It's why the Democratic party is the only one that can be trusted in power at the moment, even while it deals with its own internal problems.
We simply live in a country where people’s careers can be ruined, intellectual curiosity strangled or muzzled with impunity and is sometimes openly encouraged and defended, but if you punch someone in the face or threaten bodily harm (in the name of a group you feel a belonging toward) you are branded a terrorist. Social justice warriors just haven’t crossed that line into violence yet, or started openly carrying their ARs to protests, maybe because they can’t at least in CA where I live, because last time that happened (Black Panthers) the governor (Reagan) banned open carry. It does feel anti-intellectual, when feelings are valued so highly that they negate the need for discussion. In other words, it’s only ok to ruin someone’s life if your tools are socially acceptable, and we place a premium on punishment for physical violence.
Not following your open sentence. A major rallying cry of Antifa, which is clearly much more than an idea, despite what the current occupant of the white house may say, is “punch a Nazi”, which they seem to do with impunity, acting as judge, jury and executioner in most cases, yet anyone, including our former President, who dares call them terrorists is excoriated.
You mention that intellectual curiosity can be strangled or muzzled, but it can also be killed through ritual suicide or self-immolation. I’m a scientist by training, holding a Ph.D. in biology. That is just a simple statement of fact to indicate that I am trained to make observations and ask questions, not said to impress or put myself above anyone.
I work in a large science museum, a place you might assume to value and attempt to instill in visitors a sense of curiosity. And like me, most of the people I work with directly have backgrounds in science or also hold advanced degrees. Overall, it is a group that you could reasonably assume would have a good deal of intellectual curiosity when it come to making claims about the causes of observable patterns.
After this past summer of our discontent, a number of my colleagues decided we needed to become more woke as an organization. Their solution to that was to divide us (randomly, I think) into small groups who would simultaneously watch and discuss a podcast series all about whiteness.
While approved by our departmental leadership, it was made clear participation was strictly voluntary. The main intellectual (and being a follower of John McWhorter, I use that term advisedly) underpinnings, such as they were, were largely taken from one IX Kendi. After participating in the first st one and hearing this, I suggested to my group mates that there were black intellectuals out there who had a decided different point of view and offered to provide links to such sources.
This gets back to my point about people apparently voluntarily killing or turning off their intellectual curiosity, or as John so eloquently shows us, simply accept this as religion whose tenets cannot be questioned or challenged.
I was astounded by the lack of any interest in trying to compare different points of view to draw conclusions about which makes a stronger case. This from people who would identify themselves as scientists or at least would admit to viewing the world through a scientific lens. Instead, I got crickets. No interest in comparing any arguments that might dissuade then from simply accepting the truth as it was being presented to them, and all that was required of them to pass the test was simply parroting back what they had been fed in the podcast. I was thunderstruck. Even more so as this happened in the midst of the great COVID scare where the rallying cry was “follow the science.” My colleagues apparently, willfully and voluntarily shut off their curiosity rather than question anything they were being fed about this topic.
I earlier compared this act to self-immolation. And I think that is a good comparison. To think that anyone trained to use their mind to weigh facts and compare claims to reach conclusions would voluntarily stifle that capacity to me is a horribly violent way to eliminate a capacity that is one of the strongest and most useful faculties we possess as humans. It is truly terrify to me.
Following that experience I withdrew from these modern day struggle sessions and my opinion of my colleagues changed drastically.
Well, here in our small town of Snohomish, WA, our mayor's former campaign manager adnittedin writing to the local paper that he was a Proud Boy, and moved to TX because WA was just too liberal for him. When the mayor was asked if he himself was a Proud Boy, the most he would say is "No comment." In June, after an on-line rumor came out that Antifa was coming to our small town to smash windows, the streets were lined with quickly drunk yahoos, with their ARs and empty plate carriers, some with "Proud Boy" emblazoned on said carriers.
During the inevitable protest, one of them decided to bravely get into a fist fight with a 16 year old girl, who was joined by a 19 year old, fresh high-school grad who got himself put into the hospital by the same drunken buffoon. The mayor and the sheriff essentially cheered them on.
So here in the Seattle area, there is some institutional infiltration by the Proud Boys, but nothing like the wide scale corporate and government adaptation of CRT.
That happened three blocks from my house. Robin DiAngelo lives ten miles from me. It feels like we're living between the Red Guard and the Brownshirts.
As an aside, did anyone send you the article about BLM grossing $90,000,000 in the last five years, and Michael Brown's father asking for $20M for them using his son to raise $$?
$90M is serious bank, and serious inspiration to keep the narrative alive.
I've had the sense for quite some time now that Right-Wing Loonies and the Alt-Right is a bête noir. Your rhetoric is strong, but I don't think it's enough.
I can't find a single article on line anywhere asking the question if any of this is true, or what it means aside from, "Nazis will soon be goose-stepping through your living room unless we circle the wagons." And frankly, I don't have a good leg to stand on when I dive into those conversations. The opposite is true: The UN says it's a problem; the Canadian government says it's a problem; The FBI grudgingly admits it's a problem, the SPLC says it's a problem, the ACLU says it's a problem, etc. My google results are at least 5 pages deep with how big of a problem this is.
Center for Strategic and International Studies definitely sounds official. Anyway, here's what they have to say:
The Rise in Far-Right Extremism
Terrorist attacks by right-wing extremists in the United States have increased. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of such attacks was five or less per year. They then rose to 14 in 2012; continued at a similar level between 2012 and 2016, with a mean of 11 attacks and a median of 13 attacks; and then jumped to 31 in 2017.7 FBI arrests of right-wing extremists also increased in 2018. 8
Well, it's definitely growing, but the average American still has a better chance of their refrigerator failing on them than being embroiled in a right-wing (or any) terrorist attack. So we see again that fear is stronger than reason. Still...it's growing. How soon until it takes over the world???
You say they have no institutional power and no impact on culture (aside from increased fearmongering). I agree, but someone else will say, "Well, QANON is in every police department and the military at all levels. The FBI has release a report 10 years ago about the growing threat of white supremacists in police organizations. THIS. IS. KNOWN." If one argues against this, or merely wonders if it's true, it's as if you shoved an entire cat turd into your mouth.
I've had a friend tell me that he believes white supremacy is a problem because he doesn't see reporting on the opposite. Pointing out the flaw in that argument, i.e. the myriad issues with modern journalism, requires an entire separate and equally difficult discussion. I mentioned a recent SPLC article I read on the Proud Boys and how it contained almost no evidence that this group participated in any kind of violent acts or terrorism, just that they said nasty things online and they might be friends with other bad people. Yet it was the source for most of the opinions people held about the organization. (It was truly a terrible article, and has shattered any faith I had in the SPLC. Please read it: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys)
So let's turn the question around a bit: if Right-Wing extremism is growing, what does it mean? Why is it growing? Is there a threshold we can point to where we all agree it's really a problem. What about other types of extremism? What are we trying to protect or preserve? How does one actually combat it?
I guess I'm ranting a bit here, but it's really, really hard to get through to anyone that they should AT A MINIMUM be asking these questions. They believe it because they want to believe it, it's easy to believe, it costs nothing to believe and could cost everything not to believe it. The stranglehold this narrative has on people's minds is simply horrifying and I've really lost any sense that people can snap out of it or that I have any ability to argue against it.
We need some REALLY good arguments against the narrative and while this is a nice opening salvo, it's unlikely to move the conversation.
The FBI has been saying for some time now that white nationalist and white supremacist violence and terrorism is becoming a serious threat. They said this under Trump and are saying it now. And if the FBI is biased (and I don't believe they are), well let's just say nobody has ever accused them of being a bastion of bleeding-heart liberalism.
Not that we haven't seen this ourselves to some extent. Numerous mass shootings have been perpetrated by people clearly influenced by white supremacist or white nationalist ideology, from Columbine to Charlotte to El Paso. And while in the past I was willing to write these off as just some isolated loons, some recent reporting in the Atlantic on the growing threat of right-wing militias (among other places) has me concerned:
Sadly, in areas unrelated to the specific question to hand, many of the sources touting "far right panic" have discredited themselves. The ADL is completely clueless, having been trolled by 4chan repeatedly, and the SPLC is a (very profitable) grift. The media has embarrassed itself with transparent propagandistic techniques, visible to all who care to look. The UN has never shown itself to be a reliable purveyor of factual information. To be generous though, I doubt the UN is any more corrupt than the baseline level of corruption in the governments of its constituent members. (l.o.l.)
In point of fact, if one were to posit an effort to CREATE a dangerous armed opposition to the woke project...it would look very much like what has been loudly proclaimed by the corporate media, academia, and Hollywood. Who was it said "Microaggessions were generated by market forces when the supply of actual racism fell short of demand."??
I can see only one solution to the problems at Smith College - a freestyle battle between Jodi Shaw and Kathleen McCartney. I am having trouble getting over the thought of a librarian doing a "rap" presentation. It seems the school was saving her from real embarrassment. Besides if you graduated from Smith and make $45,000 a year you probably should be reconsidering your life choices.
I think that both women were put in difficult situations. McCartney over-reacted. But Shaw could have been a little more understanding. I worked in education. Shaw has to be used to being bored by ridiculous presentations.
Thank you for this, John. It is very difficult to find actual data on the extent and significance of the alt-right or white supremacists, some of whom I am sure are on the Left as well as the Right.
I don't observe the alt-right having any influence on my employer, my church, my alma mater, or any other similar institutions that I am involved with, certainly. I don't trust my own experience of this to necessarily be reflective of the national reality. The only Trump supporters I know personally are extended family living in other states. It's sometimes hard to imagine, but I know there are many other places with a lot more Trump supporters around, and I have to say that I'm just not aware if alt-right ideas might be taking over some institutions in those area. I haven't been more than a two hour drive from my coastal urban home in a year and a half, so if there's any time I might be out of touch with the ground truth in other parts of the country, it's now. Regardless of this uncertainty, I agree that I can see firsthand that wokism is taking over a lot of the institutions I care about and deal with, and I share your concern about that.
And now we have Michelle (free speech) Goldberg at the NYTimes opining that attempts to stop our public institutions use of CRT to dehumanize more than half the population based on race is actually anti free speech. She does a hit job on Chris Rufo because he is working to get these issues before the Supreme Court.
To be fair, she acknowledges that there is plenty about CRT to contest regarding its stance on free speech, and notes various excesses of wokeness as "embarrassments" - notably the incident that began it all at Smith college.
I think with regard to the proposed bans in public institutions she is opposing, the devil would be in the details. I can certainly imagine an outright ban being a step too far. I mean, if we're going to ban anything in our public institutions, how about we start with public officials promulgating blatant misinformation to undermine public trust for political purposes?
Heck, maybe we could get the left and right to make a deal ... we all agree prejudice against white people is at least a valid concern, and nobody is allowed to espouse egregiously false claims. Yeah, it'd be a logistical nightmare, but in principle it's a trade I think most people would be willing to make. Win-win in my book. :-)
Is it advocating free speech for a University to subject its' employees to harassment for being white? How about a grade school in California subjecting kids to indoctrination in woke gender theories? Maybe you think that it's okay for public schools in Buffalo to harass teachers with CRT driven programs.
Michele Goldberg is arguing for Electism under the guise of defending free speech.
"If you're confused about what is free speech and what is harassment ..."
You've twice tried to conflate two very different things: (1) being against using the law to ban teaching CRT, and (2) being in favor of the Elect harassing others. That's intellectually dishonest.
I don't think anyone wants to ban CRT. It's that people don't want to abide by a set of rules that is not the actual law, and is imposed by activists. If you want to practice CRT, don't force people who are against it to adhere to its rules.
The problem with her argument is that the complaint against wokeness is that it attempts to censor speech. The idea that speech that is intended to strip someone of their civil liberties should be protected doesn't make sense. Besides, Chris Rufo isn't trying to cancel CRT. He just wants it out of our schools.
I can see your concern that CRT is not taken sufficiently seriously as being dangerous & potent— but why set up a competition as to which tendency is the most dangerous? There is danger in both, and they are related. Four years of Trump’s stirring up white nationalist and xenophobic fears resulted in Jan 6, a wake up call with regard to the deathly seriousness of the nativist, sometime hideously openly racist, anti-democratic forces, as seen in the protestors armed with assault rifles in the gallery of the Michigan legislative chamber. And then what we saw in the Capitol. As the actual racist killings and death threats continue, the race attitudes in question and other manifestations of frustration and anger may be emboldened and more righteous, punitive and hostile. The term “extreme left” is awfully vague—covers a multitude of sectarian tendencies..... I wonder if all those in the category of Elect even identify with leftism and have a sense of urgency about the need for social reform of economy to rein in big corporate power. White those same corporations are dutifully offering sensitivity training.
The term 'Alt-right" and "white supremacist" are also vague and have been used to describe perfectly benign moderate Republicans or those who have simply left the Left. Name-calling is not helpful nor accurate in this discussion.
I have only been subscribed for a week and I couldn’t be happier with the content you produce. I’m currently reading Losing the Race and I’m at the Anti Intellectualism and the Root and couldn’t agree more. I’m a Canadian with a Trinidadian background and can attest that the nonsense is spreading just as quick up here. Keep up the great work John. 🔥
"Losing the Race" was my introduction to Prof. McWhorter, and it's wonderful. The book is concise and the ideas have remarkable explanatory and predictive power. After reading it, hearing the race-hustlers who portray themselves as "black leaders" is very depressing, and leads to the feeling that black people have been badly let down by said "leaders".
No one on the alt right is demanding that my grandson be indoctrinated to think like Andrew Breitbart. But unless he attends a Jewish day school, my grandson will have a hard time finding a public school to attend that doesn't teach Critical Race Theory. And I work in entertainment and in food criticism, and the alt right has zero impact on my business dealings. But the woke left tries to interfere with my business any chance they can get. In the end of the day, Stalin & Mao killed many more people than Hitler. But for some reason, Hitler holds the mantle of the world's biggest monster. And I say that as the son of a survivor so no one has to explain the horrors of the Holocaust to me. But really, the Left is far more dangerous than the right.
The institution they are taking (have taken over?) is the Republican Party, and the threat posed by that takeover is the threat to democracy. I say that while agreeing with your view of non-governmental institutions and their problems, as you state them. However, if we are ordering threats by priority, I’d say the threat to the Democratic process has to rank quite high. No institution is as dangerous as the Republican Party in that regard. And yes I am considering the Republican party’s base to generally be a far/extreme element by any standard of liberal democracy, so no I don’t think I’m outside your premise. State legislatures across the country are, as we speak, proposing voter restriction laws representing a 4-fold increase in such laws over the past 20 years. Many of these laws surgically target minority voters, such as Georgia’s proposal to ban early voting on Sunday, the preferred day of voting for Black voters in the state by orders of magnitude. I for one see this form of radicalism (and surely it is radicalism) as a greater threat, even while recognizing the legitimacy of the threats you mention. At the very least I find your argument not nearly as convincing, and not nearly as warranting of its polemical tone, when the Republican Party is considered as major US institution, which of course it is.
SAM: As I read your post, I knew that if I substituted "Democrat Party" everywhere you wrote "Republican Party" in the first half of your paragraph, it would reflect MY view almost perfectly. For some time now I have regarded the Democrats in Congress as the greatest threat to democracy that I have ever seen in my 75 years. My history goes back to the brief time when the Democrats were warriors for individual rights, free speech, civil rights - right after they decided to stop being the party of Jim Crow, segregation and the KKK.
Today they are the party of banning topics of discussion, blatantly partisan media, questioning elections that result in GOP Presidents but then claiming the 2020 election was pure as the driven snow, and supporting a Presidential candidate who was and is clearly sinking into dementia. And I was once a Democrat, but walked away when the party became unhinged over the Trump Presidency and then tried to destroy Judge Kavanaugh using the most underhanded methods I have ever seen. I did not join the Republicans, I was radicalized by the behavior of the Democrats . Never again.
Each of the concerns you raise is legitimate (minus the election bit; more on this later). There is much about the mainstream Democratic Party that I find objectionable. Where I differ and differ strongly is that 1) it remains quite clear to me that these issues are of a lower order than the issues raised by the actions of the Republican Party and 2) many mainstream Democratic priorities, particularly on economic issues, are very good, and if implemented would make the country a better place. The mainstream press is indeed too gentle on and too accommodating of the Democratic party's interests. I think this trend must be appreciated n the context of a conservative media machine (Fox News, especially) that has long had zero (and I mean zero literally) interest in fact and is anti-humanist/immoral to its core. But I still buy that the NYT and CNN and the like have strayed from their missions in service of political ends. The failure to comprehensively report on the magnitude of destruction from this summer's riots is the key example, imo. None of this sways me from the belief that if ever America becomes the nation is professes itself to be, a nation of dignity for the lower orders and a true multi-racial democracy, these ideas and policies driving our redemption will emanate from the left (voting rights, child allowances, higher minimum wage). Moreover, none of these concerns rises within a mile to the severity of the GOP's attack on the franchise and its brazen disdain for democratic principles. While there is zero evidence of a systemic fraud in the 2020 election, there are decades of open suppression of the vote and extreme procedural rigging of elections on the right that is much too blatant to require a critical eye, yet alone a conspirator theory. The legitimacy of the 2020 election may be a an open question, the illegitimacy of the GOP's preference for (nay manufacturing) for expanding minority rule is not. This is a rejection of America in principle, in total. It is a violation of our communal fabric that shrinks the fights over online speech or other forms of progressive overreach (see Kavanaugh) to problems of minimal importance on their face. There are now 40 million more Americans represented by the 50 Democratic Senators than the 50 Republican senators, the result of demographic trends that are likely to get worse. It has now been estimated that 70 Senators could represent 30% of the population with 2-3 decades. Long before that we will have ceased to be a democracy and anything ostensibly honorable or devotion-worthy about our system will have perished. When the stakes are this high, I'll take the lesser evil any day, especially when the lesser evil might take a break from being haughty and censorious to give poor people some money and healthcare, and actually try to forestall the looming devastation of climate change. Yeah they'll get my vote.
Exactly this. Moreover, Marjorie Taylor Greene is in Congress because of alt-right lunacy and several more Congress members are nearly as dedicated to feeding alt-right fantasies.
And that's just what actually happened-- think about what came close to happening on 1/6! Presumably this would be a very different column if the insurrectionists had succeeded in murdering a bunch of members of Congress and giving Trump an excuse to declare an emergency and nullify the election results. Yet we came very close to living that nightmare-- a few bits of luck and a few bits of heroism were all that saved us-- and they are likely to try again this decade with the connivance of a bunch of Republican elected officials. Much as I agree that the threat of the Elect is underrated, the chances of them making a credible attempt to outright overthrow the republic in the coming decade are far smaller.
Nothing "came close to happening" on Jan 6th. You are asking people to address your fantasies as facts. I consider attempt to sway people from rational thinking more dangerous than anything the political parties might institute. The scenario you present is entirely fabricated, and borderline hysterical, and, not to be too insulting, completely stupid.
Is it projection? Do you fantasize about "the good people" taking over and creating a rainbows and unicorns paradise? Do you think there are some REAL "Levers of Power" somewhere in a control room in the Capitol Building, that those yahoos might have gotten hold of, thereby running the country?? Or do you have something more Wizard of Ozish in mind?
Besides ridiculing your TDS-induced fantasia about the "Battle of January 6th", I'd ask you to reconsider your disregard of the potential danger of a single ideology, or a single party running all the legacy media, entertainment, academia and Big Tech social media. I'm sure some Chinese approved of the "heroic" tank driver in Tienamen Square, and later thought they should have been concerned about the "excesses" of the Cultural Revolution.
How many people do you believe are like the Capitol Rioters? How many people do you believe are in The Elect? How many of each are in institutions that matter? I don't know the answer, but it doesn't even seem close.
To elaborate, say the clown brigade *had* managed to occupy the capitol for more than an afternoon: what then? What was the possible avenue from that, to democratic takeover? Even ignoring the widespread and bipartisan backlash, a modern state is _thick_. I hear all the time about how the 2A is irrelevant because "tanks and planes and stuff", and while one might argue that the claim lacks appropriate context, it also reflects a basic reality.
So, please explain how Jake Angeli was going to muster the support of all the disparate agents of government around the country after his LARP takeover of the Senate chamber. Because I don't see it.
This is a conversation I've tried to have with friends, relatives, and coworkers since before 1/6/21. I grow weary.
Agree with all this 114%. Yet, I maintain, 'dissing the Woke' is a bad thing to do regardless. Anti-woke people need to constantly be on their guard to remember that the vast majority of Woke people have their hearts in the right place.
I get what you're saying but there's an important distinction to be made here. Hypocrisy, harassment, misrepresentation, sowing division, encouraging judgment almost as a way of life... these are not the behaviors of people who have their hearts in the right place. I agree though that the path they are walking is lined with good intentions.
And I don't mean that only in the snarky sense. The reason we need to recognize that they are well-intentioned is because we need to understand the nature of the problem in order to address it effectively. We are dealing with fools, not monsters. But we shouldn't give them even an inch of latitude because they are being foolish rather than monstrous. Because foolishness is the mother of monstrous outcomes.
John, I would say you're ignoring one traditional institution that has been *thoroughly* corrupted by the alt-right: the Republican Party. To many on the left, this might qualify as an afterthought, since we've viewed the Republicans as being corrupted by various flavors of dogmatic lunacy, illiberalism, and racial hostility for quite some time now. But never have they so thoroughly, publicly embraced such a nihilistic style of politics as they do today - as they essentially bow to the reality of being a personality cult which formally censures anyone who dares betray Dear Glorious Leader. Compare the party to five years ago and the difference is truly stark.
The far right is the bigger threat at the moment because they now constitute a controlling majority of one of our two major political parties. Most Republicans still believe that Biden won the election through massive fraud, despite there being no evidence to support this. And a disturbing number of them are becoming comfortable with the idea that using violence may be necessary to reclaim "the traditional American way of life". Make no mistake; right now we are between a rock and a hard place. The "woke" are a threat, but a less immediate one, because they do not control the Democratic party. In fact, many people who are sympathetic to their ideology on a surface level become much more alarmed when they read accounts of their excesses and realize that the devil is in the details. The majority of the party are reasonable people who are more and more beginning to awaken to the dangers of this new mindset. Are we safe enough to ignore them? Absolutely not, which is why it is good that we have folks like you and Bari Weiss manning the barricades, so to speak. But at the moment, the left is managing this threat, far better than the right did with their crazies, who have now become the Republican mainstream. It's why the Democratic party is the only one that can be trusted in power at the moment, even while it deals with its own internal problems.
We simply live in a country where people’s careers can be ruined, intellectual curiosity strangled or muzzled with impunity and is sometimes openly encouraged and defended, but if you punch someone in the face or threaten bodily harm (in the name of a group you feel a belonging toward) you are branded a terrorist. Social justice warriors just haven’t crossed that line into violence yet, or started openly carrying their ARs to protests, maybe because they can’t at least in CA where I live, because last time that happened (Black Panthers) the governor (Reagan) banned open carry. It does feel anti-intellectual, when feelings are valued so highly that they negate the need for discussion. In other words, it’s only ok to ruin someone’s life if your tools are socially acceptable, and we place a premium on punishment for physical violence.
Not following your open sentence. A major rallying cry of Antifa, which is clearly much more than an idea, despite what the current occupant of the white house may say, is “punch a Nazi”, which they seem to do with impunity, acting as judge, jury and executioner in most cases, yet anyone, including our former President, who dares call them terrorists is excoriated.
You mention that intellectual curiosity can be strangled or muzzled, but it can also be killed through ritual suicide or self-immolation. I’m a scientist by training, holding a Ph.D. in biology. That is just a simple statement of fact to indicate that I am trained to make observations and ask questions, not said to impress or put myself above anyone.
I work in a large science museum, a place you might assume to value and attempt to instill in visitors a sense of curiosity. And like me, most of the people I work with directly have backgrounds in science or also hold advanced degrees. Overall, it is a group that you could reasonably assume would have a good deal of intellectual curiosity when it come to making claims about the causes of observable patterns.
After this past summer of our discontent, a number of my colleagues decided we needed to become more woke as an organization. Their solution to that was to divide us (randomly, I think) into small groups who would simultaneously watch and discuss a podcast series all about whiteness.
While approved by our departmental leadership, it was made clear participation was strictly voluntary. The main intellectual (and being a follower of John McWhorter, I use that term advisedly) underpinnings, such as they were, were largely taken from one IX Kendi. After participating in the first st one and hearing this, I suggested to my group mates that there were black intellectuals out there who had a decided different point of view and offered to provide links to such sources.
This gets back to my point about people apparently voluntarily killing or turning off their intellectual curiosity, or as John so eloquently shows us, simply accept this as religion whose tenets cannot be questioned or challenged.
I was astounded by the lack of any interest in trying to compare different points of view to draw conclusions about which makes a stronger case. This from people who would identify themselves as scientists or at least would admit to viewing the world through a scientific lens. Instead, I got crickets. No interest in comparing any arguments that might dissuade then from simply accepting the truth as it was being presented to them, and all that was required of them to pass the test was simply parroting back what they had been fed in the podcast. I was thunderstruck. Even more so as this happened in the midst of the great COVID scare where the rallying cry was “follow the science.” My colleagues apparently, willfully and voluntarily shut off their curiosity rather than question anything they were being fed about this topic.
I earlier compared this act to self-immolation. And I think that is a good comparison. To think that anyone trained to use their mind to weigh facts and compare claims to reach conclusions would voluntarily stifle that capacity to me is a horribly violent way to eliminate a capacity that is one of the strongest and most useful faculties we possess as humans. It is truly terrify to me.
Following that experience I withdrew from these modern day struggle sessions and my opinion of my colleagues changed drastically.
Just went through CRT training. Everyone texting their real thoughts while the sessions are ongoing, eerily telling.
Glad you are here, John. Five dollars a month. Keep up the good fight.
Well, here in our small town of Snohomish, WA, our mayor's former campaign manager adnittedin writing to the local paper that he was a Proud Boy, and moved to TX because WA was just too liberal for him. When the mayor was asked if he himself was a Proud Boy, the most he would say is "No comment." In June, after an on-line rumor came out that Antifa was coming to our small town to smash windows, the streets were lined with quickly drunk yahoos, with their ARs and empty plate carriers, some with "Proud Boy" emblazoned on said carriers.
During the inevitable protest, one of them decided to bravely get into a fist fight with a 16 year old girl, who was joined by a 19 year old, fresh high-school grad who got himself put into the hospital by the same drunken buffoon. The mayor and the sheriff essentially cheered them on.
So here in the Seattle area, there is some institutional infiltration by the Proud Boys, but nothing like the wide scale corporate and government adaptation of CRT.
That happened three blocks from my house. Robin DiAngelo lives ten miles from me. It feels like we're living between the Red Guard and the Brownshirts.
As an aside, did anyone send you the article about BLM grossing $90,000,000 in the last five years, and Michael Brown's father asking for $20M for them using his son to raise $$?
$90M is serious bank, and serious inspiration to keep the narrative alive.
I've had the sense for quite some time now that Right-Wing Loonies and the Alt-Right is a bête noir. Your rhetoric is strong, but I don't think it's enough.
I can't find a single article on line anywhere asking the question if any of this is true, or what it means aside from, "Nazis will soon be goose-stepping through your living room unless we circle the wagons." And frankly, I don't have a good leg to stand on when I dive into those conversations. The opposite is true: The UN says it's a problem; the Canadian government says it's a problem; The FBI grudgingly admits it's a problem, the SPLC says it's a problem, the ACLU says it's a problem, etc. My google results are at least 5 pages deep with how big of a problem this is.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/rise-far-right-extremism-united-states
Center for Strategic and International Studies definitely sounds official. Anyway, here's what they have to say:
The Rise in Far-Right Extremism
Terrorist attacks by right-wing extremists in the United States have increased. Between 2007 and 2011, the number of such attacks was five or less per year. They then rose to 14 in 2012; continued at a similar level between 2012 and 2016, with a mean of 11 attacks and a median of 13 attacks; and then jumped to 31 in 2017.7 FBI arrests of right-wing extremists also increased in 2018. 8
Well, it's definitely growing, but the average American still has a better chance of their refrigerator failing on them than being embroiled in a right-wing (or any) terrorist attack. So we see again that fear is stronger than reason. Still...it's growing. How soon until it takes over the world???
You say they have no institutional power and no impact on culture (aside from increased fearmongering). I agree, but someone else will say, "Well, QANON is in every police department and the military at all levels. The FBI has release a report 10 years ago about the growing threat of white supremacists in police organizations. THIS. IS. KNOWN." If one argues against this, or merely wonders if it's true, it's as if you shoved an entire cat turd into your mouth.
I've had a friend tell me that he believes white supremacy is a problem because he doesn't see reporting on the opposite. Pointing out the flaw in that argument, i.e. the myriad issues with modern journalism, requires an entire separate and equally difficult discussion. I mentioned a recent SPLC article I read on the Proud Boys and how it contained almost no evidence that this group participated in any kind of violent acts or terrorism, just that they said nasty things online and they might be friends with other bad people. Yet it was the source for most of the opinions people held about the organization. (It was truly a terrible article, and has shattered any faith I had in the SPLC. Please read it: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/proud-boys)
So let's turn the question around a bit: if Right-Wing extremism is growing, what does it mean? Why is it growing? Is there a threshold we can point to where we all agree it's really a problem. What about other types of extremism? What are we trying to protect or preserve? How does one actually combat it?
I guess I'm ranting a bit here, but it's really, really hard to get through to anyone that they should AT A MINIMUM be asking these questions. They believe it because they want to believe it, it's easy to believe, it costs nothing to believe and could cost everything not to believe it. The stranglehold this narrative has on people's minds is simply horrifying and I've really lost any sense that people can snap out of it or that I have any ability to argue against it.
We need some REALLY good arguments against the narrative and while this is a nice opening salvo, it's unlikely to move the conversation.
The FBI has been saying for some time now that white nationalist and white supremacist violence and terrorism is becoming a serious threat. They said this under Trump and are saying it now. And if the FBI is biased (and I don't believe they are), well let's just say nobody has ever accused them of being a bastion of bleeding-heart liberalism.
Not that we haven't seen this ourselves to some extent. Numerous mass shootings have been perpetrated by people clearly influenced by white supremacist or white nationalist ideology, from Columbine to Charlotte to El Paso. And while in the past I was willing to write these off as just some isolated loons, some recent reporting in the Atlantic on the growing threat of right-wing militias (among other places) has me concerned:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/right-wing-militias-civil-war/616473/
Sadly, in areas unrelated to the specific question to hand, many of the sources touting "far right panic" have discredited themselves. The ADL is completely clueless, having been trolled by 4chan repeatedly, and the SPLC is a (very profitable) grift. The media has embarrassed itself with transparent propagandistic techniques, visible to all who care to look. The UN has never shown itself to be a reliable purveyor of factual information. To be generous though, I doubt the UN is any more corrupt than the baseline level of corruption in the governments of its constituent members. (l.o.l.)
In point of fact, if one were to posit an effort to CREATE a dangerous armed opposition to the woke project...it would look very much like what has been loudly proclaimed by the corporate media, academia, and Hollywood. Who was it said "Microaggessions were generated by market forces when the supply of actual racism fell short of demand."??
I can see only one solution to the problems at Smith College - a freestyle battle between Jodi Shaw and Kathleen McCartney. I am having trouble getting over the thought of a librarian doing a "rap" presentation. It seems the school was saving her from real embarrassment. Besides if you graduated from Smith and make $45,000 a year you probably should be reconsidering your life choices.
I think that both women were put in difficult situations. McCartney over-reacted. But Shaw could have been a little more understanding. I worked in education. Shaw has to be used to being bored by ridiculous presentations.
Thank you for this, John. It is very difficult to find actual data on the extent and significance of the alt-right or white supremacists, some of whom I am sure are on the Left as well as the Right.
I don't observe the alt-right having any influence on my employer, my church, my alma mater, or any other similar institutions that I am involved with, certainly. I don't trust my own experience of this to necessarily be reflective of the national reality. The only Trump supporters I know personally are extended family living in other states. It's sometimes hard to imagine, but I know there are many other places with a lot more Trump supporters around, and I have to say that I'm just not aware if alt-right ideas might be taking over some institutions in those area. I haven't been more than a two hour drive from my coastal urban home in a year and a half, so if there's any time I might be out of touch with the ground truth in other parts of the country, it's now. Regardless of this uncertainty, I agree that I can see firsthand that wokism is taking over a lot of the institutions I care about and deal with, and I share your concern about that.
And now we have Michelle (free speech) Goldberg at the NYTimes opining that attempts to stop our public institutions use of CRT to dehumanize more than half the population based on race is actually anti free speech. She does a hit job on Chris Rufo because he is working to get these issues before the Supreme Court.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/opinion/speech-racism-academia.html
To be fair, she acknowledges that there is plenty about CRT to contest regarding its stance on free speech, and notes various excesses of wokeness as "embarrassments" - notably the incident that began it all at Smith college.
I think with regard to the proposed bans in public institutions she is opposing, the devil would be in the details. I can certainly imagine an outright ban being a step too far. I mean, if we're going to ban anything in our public institutions, how about we start with public officials promulgating blatant misinformation to undermine public trust for political purposes?
Heck, maybe we could get the left and right to make a deal ... we all agree prejudice against white people is at least a valid concern, and nobody is allowed to espouse egregiously false claims. Yeah, it'd be a logistical nightmare, but in principle it's a trade I think most people would be willing to make. Win-win in my book. :-)
Oh, how horrible, an advocate for free speech actually being against censoring views that they disagree with. 🙄
Is it advocating free speech for a University to subject its' employees to harassment for being white? How about a grade school in California subjecting kids to indoctrination in woke gender theories? Maybe you think that it's okay for public schools in Buffalo to harass teachers with CRT driven programs.
Michele Goldberg is arguing for Electism under the guise of defending free speech.
Your response to me supporting a principled defense of free speech is to accuse me of being pro-harassment. That's a very ... Elect style of argument.
If you're confused about what is free speech and what is harassment I suggest you take a look at this: https://www.city-journal.org/critical-race-theory-schools
"If you're confused about what is free speech and what is harassment ..."
You've twice tried to conflate two very different things: (1) being against using the law to ban teaching CRT, and (2) being in favor of the Elect harassing others. That's intellectually dishonest.
Also, about the source in your link, Chris Rufo. According to Cathy Young, he has "cherrypicked and overdramatized" some of his claims. For example, he portrayed a fluffy, somewhat New-Agey antiracism workshop as if it were a "struggle session." (https://arcdigital.media/the-no-win-battle-of-trump-vs-critical-race-theory-a5aaec06d7e4)
I don't think anyone wants to ban CRT. It's that people don't want to abide by a set of rules that is not the actual law, and is imposed by activists. If you want to practice CRT, don't force people who are against it to adhere to its rules.
Why do I care about Cathy Young?
On second thought, never mind. I've spent enough time on trolls today.
She's making an unprincipled attempt to cast the imposition of CRT in our institutions as an issue of free speech. She's wrong.
If you support what happened to Jodi Shaw at Smith and the other activities I mentioned then that's supporting harassment.
If the shoe fits wear it.
The problem with her argument is that the complaint against wokeness is that it attempts to censor speech. The idea that speech that is intended to strip someone of their civil liberties should be protected doesn't make sense. Besides, Chris Rufo isn't trying to cancel CRT. He just wants it out of our schools.
I can see your concern that CRT is not taken sufficiently seriously as being dangerous & potent— but why set up a competition as to which tendency is the most dangerous? There is danger in both, and they are related. Four years of Trump’s stirring up white nationalist and xenophobic fears resulted in Jan 6, a wake up call with regard to the deathly seriousness of the nativist, sometime hideously openly racist, anti-democratic forces, as seen in the protestors armed with assault rifles in the gallery of the Michigan legislative chamber. And then what we saw in the Capitol. As the actual racist killings and death threats continue, the race attitudes in question and other manifestations of frustration and anger may be emboldened and more righteous, punitive and hostile. The term “extreme left” is awfully vague—covers a multitude of sectarian tendencies..... I wonder if all those in the category of Elect even identify with leftism and have a sense of urgency about the need for social reform of economy to rein in big corporate power. White those same corporations are dutifully offering sensitivity training.
The term 'Alt-right" and "white supremacist" are also vague and have been used to describe perfectly benign moderate Republicans or those who have simply left the Left. Name-calling is not helpful nor accurate in this discussion.
I have only been subscribed for a week and I couldn’t be happier with the content you produce. I’m currently reading Losing the Race and I’m at the Anti Intellectualism and the Root and couldn’t agree more. I’m a Canadian with a Trinidadian background and can attest that the nonsense is spreading just as quick up here. Keep up the great work John. 🔥
"Losing the Race" was my introduction to Prof. McWhorter, and it's wonderful. The book is concise and the ideas have remarkable explanatory and predictive power. After reading it, hearing the race-hustlers who portray themselves as "black leaders" is very depressing, and leads to the feeling that black people have been badly let down by said "leaders".
No one on the alt right is demanding that my grandson be indoctrinated to think like Andrew Breitbart. But unless he attends a Jewish day school, my grandson will have a hard time finding a public school to attend that doesn't teach Critical Race Theory. And I work in entertainment and in food criticism, and the alt right has zero impact on my business dealings. But the woke left tries to interfere with my business any chance they can get. In the end of the day, Stalin & Mao killed many more people than Hitler. But for some reason, Hitler holds the mantle of the world's biggest monster. And I say that as the son of a survivor so no one has to explain the horrors of the Holocaust to me. But really, the Left is far more dangerous than the right.
The institution they are taking (have taken over?) is the Republican Party, and the threat posed by that takeover is the threat to democracy. I say that while agreeing with your view of non-governmental institutions and their problems, as you state them. However, if we are ordering threats by priority, I’d say the threat to the Democratic process has to rank quite high. No institution is as dangerous as the Republican Party in that regard. And yes I am considering the Republican party’s base to generally be a far/extreme element by any standard of liberal democracy, so no I don’t think I’m outside your premise. State legislatures across the country are, as we speak, proposing voter restriction laws representing a 4-fold increase in such laws over the past 20 years. Many of these laws surgically target minority voters, such as Georgia’s proposal to ban early voting on Sunday, the preferred day of voting for Black voters in the state by orders of magnitude. I for one see this form of radicalism (and surely it is radicalism) as a greater threat, even while recognizing the legitimacy of the threats you mention. At the very least I find your argument not nearly as convincing, and not nearly as warranting of its polemical tone, when the Republican Party is considered as major US institution, which of course it is.
SAM: As I read your post, I knew that if I substituted "Democrat Party" everywhere you wrote "Republican Party" in the first half of your paragraph, it would reflect MY view almost perfectly. For some time now I have regarded the Democrats in Congress as the greatest threat to democracy that I have ever seen in my 75 years. My history goes back to the brief time when the Democrats were warriors for individual rights, free speech, civil rights - right after they decided to stop being the party of Jim Crow, segregation and the KKK.
Today they are the party of banning topics of discussion, blatantly partisan media, questioning elections that result in GOP Presidents but then claiming the 2020 election was pure as the driven snow, and supporting a Presidential candidate who was and is clearly sinking into dementia. And I was once a Democrat, but walked away when the party became unhinged over the Trump Presidency and then tried to destroy Judge Kavanaugh using the most underhanded methods I have ever seen. I did not join the Republicans, I was radicalized by the behavior of the Democrats . Never again.
Each of the concerns you raise is legitimate (minus the election bit; more on this later). There is much about the mainstream Democratic Party that I find objectionable. Where I differ and differ strongly is that 1) it remains quite clear to me that these issues are of a lower order than the issues raised by the actions of the Republican Party and 2) many mainstream Democratic priorities, particularly on economic issues, are very good, and if implemented would make the country a better place. The mainstream press is indeed too gentle on and too accommodating of the Democratic party's interests. I think this trend must be appreciated n the context of a conservative media machine (Fox News, especially) that has long had zero (and I mean zero literally) interest in fact and is anti-humanist/immoral to its core. But I still buy that the NYT and CNN and the like have strayed from their missions in service of political ends. The failure to comprehensively report on the magnitude of destruction from this summer's riots is the key example, imo. None of this sways me from the belief that if ever America becomes the nation is professes itself to be, a nation of dignity for the lower orders and a true multi-racial democracy, these ideas and policies driving our redemption will emanate from the left (voting rights, child allowances, higher minimum wage). Moreover, none of these concerns rises within a mile to the severity of the GOP's attack on the franchise and its brazen disdain for democratic principles. While there is zero evidence of a systemic fraud in the 2020 election, there are decades of open suppression of the vote and extreme procedural rigging of elections on the right that is much too blatant to require a critical eye, yet alone a conspirator theory. The legitimacy of the 2020 election may be a an open question, the illegitimacy of the GOP's preference for (nay manufacturing) for expanding minority rule is not. This is a rejection of America in principle, in total. It is a violation of our communal fabric that shrinks the fights over online speech or other forms of progressive overreach (see Kavanaugh) to problems of minimal importance on their face. There are now 40 million more Americans represented by the 50 Democratic Senators than the 50 Republican senators, the result of demographic trends that are likely to get worse. It has now been estimated that 70 Senators could represent 30% of the population with 2-3 decades. Long before that we will have ceased to be a democracy and anything ostensibly honorable or devotion-worthy about our system will have perished. When the stakes are this high, I'll take the lesser evil any day, especially when the lesser evil might take a break from being haughty and censorious to give poor people some money and healthcare, and actually try to forestall the looming devastation of climate change. Yeah they'll get my vote.
@Sam - thank you for both your comments. Well said.
Exactly this. Moreover, Marjorie Taylor Greene is in Congress because of alt-right lunacy and several more Congress members are nearly as dedicated to feeding alt-right fantasies.
And that's just what actually happened-- think about what came close to happening on 1/6! Presumably this would be a very different column if the insurrectionists had succeeded in murdering a bunch of members of Congress and giving Trump an excuse to declare an emergency and nullify the election results. Yet we came very close to living that nightmare-- a few bits of luck and a few bits of heroism were all that saved us-- and they are likely to try again this decade with the connivance of a bunch of Republican elected officials. Much as I agree that the threat of the Elect is underrated, the chances of them making a credible attempt to outright overthrow the republic in the coming decade are far smaller.
Nothing "came close to happening" on Jan 6th. You are asking people to address your fantasies as facts. I consider attempt to sway people from rational thinking more dangerous than anything the political parties might institute. The scenario you present is entirely fabricated, and borderline hysterical, and, not to be too insulting, completely stupid.
Is it projection? Do you fantasize about "the good people" taking over and creating a rainbows and unicorns paradise? Do you think there are some REAL "Levers of Power" somewhere in a control room in the Capitol Building, that those yahoos might have gotten hold of, thereby running the country?? Or do you have something more Wizard of Ozish in mind?
Besides ridiculing your TDS-induced fantasia about the "Battle of January 6th", I'd ask you to reconsider your disregard of the potential danger of a single ideology, or a single party running all the legacy media, entertainment, academia and Big Tech social media. I'm sure some Chinese approved of the "heroic" tank driver in Tienamen Square, and later thought they should have been concerned about the "excesses" of the Cultural Revolution.
How many people do you believe are like the Capitol Rioters? How many people do you believe are in The Elect? How many of each are in institutions that matter? I don't know the answer, but it doesn't even seem close.
"a few bits of luck and a few bits of heroism were all that saved us"
Yeah, that's not even plausibly true. More like monumental idiocy and a complete lack of anything resembling coherence of thought, much less planning.
To elaborate, say the clown brigade *had* managed to occupy the capitol for more than an afternoon: what then? What was the possible avenue from that, to democratic takeover? Even ignoring the widespread and bipartisan backlash, a modern state is _thick_. I hear all the time about how the 2A is irrelevant because "tanks and planes and stuff", and while one might argue that the claim lacks appropriate context, it also reflects a basic reality.
So, please explain how Jake Angeli was going to muster the support of all the disparate agents of government around the country after his LARP takeover of the Senate chamber. Because I don't see it.
It is, as a wise man* posted above, "a TDS-induced fantasia".
*-me.