A Newbie. I don't precisely understand your comment section, but I shall submit -->
1. What is "racism," or racist? How does the label relate to "native" Americans and tribes? Perhaps it might be uncomfortable to consider this, both philosophically and legally, but it is an issue that I would like you to address. "RACISM" is the basis for tribal rights. Blood quantum does define segregated privileges and rights, though it stands in distinct contradiction to the 14th Amendment.
3. Who identifies with tekashi6ix9ine? Or others from that cultural genre? What is the mind-set of middle school kids who adore that culture? Certainly, it is not academic in the conventional sense. No wonder that academic performance of black youth affirms a performance "gap." Unless the culture changes, why would any rational person believe outcomes will change? IMO, in future chapters, you must address the cultural divide.
4. Take time and listen to the music that has captured their souls. Listen to the lyrics.
5. Suggestion--> interview members of the National Honor Society at an 'urban' high school. Ask them to explain the performance gap of their peers. Ask them about youth culture. Then, randomly talk with kids in grades 7-10. Review their music-listening tastes. Ask them to describe whom they admire.
That YT video just absolute garbage. I try to tell myself that I'm just sounding like my grandpa when he saw a Smells Like Teen Spirit music video in the early '90s and shook his head but that trash? I'm sorry, that is fundamentally something different, something deranged and damaging, especially to young kids.
It would be illuminating for you to give some names to The Elect. You have mentioned a few names, but there must be many more to have constructed such an alternate universe. Time to call them out!
He also doesn't like to specifically call out names but he and Glenn often indirectly refer to them as "the people with three names". Michael Eric Dyson, Ibrim X Kendi, Nicole Hannah Jones, etc. You could identify many by identifying members of the professoriate employed in "ethnic studies" departments at major universities, also known as grievance studies. In addition, anytime these people are called out, they and their defenders, with laughable predictability, will say any push back or critique they receive is "harassment" or "online violence" and thus often it is more effective to refer to them in the abstract.
I suspect they are truly leaderless. In the sense that who is there who would claim ownership? Followship less than fellowship, surely. As to calling them out, they do that better among themselves than do those who oppose them directly.
Thank you for your continued efforts to illuminate this challenging subject, and to provide an informed perspective about and context for this phenomenon.
"Public Discourse" recently published an article authored by Rev. James Wood titled, "Reforming our Successor Civil Religion" that echoes your parallel of "wokeism" to religion, albeit from a more explicitly theological bent. Definitely interesting reading, and I found I better followed Rev. Wood's arguments having had the benefit of yours.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful exposition on this complex subject, and I look eagerly forward to your next installment.
I agree with the overall thesis that wokeness is a religion and love Dr. McWhorter's work, but I think the point about the Elect not actually trying to bring about results is missing something. Namely, my impression is not that the Elect enjoy grandstanding and making symbolic gestures (changing words and names, etc.) while not actually caring to alleviate poverty and so on. I imagine that many in the Elect are sincere in their conscious intent to be active in making black people's lives better but don't want to admit (not even to themselves) that solutions are not simple or obvious; optimal concrete solutions may in fact be quite complicated and indirect, and the low-hanging fruit for means of bringing about racial equity has mostly already been picked some 50 years ago. Moreover, the actual concrete solutions may require recognizing certain truths that are uncomfortable or taboo because they go beyond "all of Black America's failures are an immediate, direct result of current oppression". So, with a lack of simple, obvious-looking strategies for improving the welfare of African-Americans at hand, the Elect spend a lot of time bloviating and gesturing vaguely at solutions that are "out there" if only we can all get on the same page, and pursuing actions that are simple and have mostly symbolic rather than concrete significance.
Again, I don't think this damages the claim that wokeness is a religion, but maybe it sheds light on some aspects of how anti-racist activism came to be a religion (the aspect of saying a lot of things and punishing those who contradict the dogma without seeming to get around to much action).
(By the way, is there a way of creating boldface or italics in this interface? Last time I tried <i> </i> and it didn't work...)
The Prof wears his TDS like a badge of honor, and that’s ok because I’m not looking for an echo chamber. It will date his needed book though and might best be left out. He clearly dislikes Christianity, and I would say doesn’t understand evangelical Christianity very well. I bring that up, as some others have, because it confuses his case for Wokeism being a new religion. I agree that it is a good analogy, but like any analogy it should not be pushed too far as it breaks down. Others have suggested it is merely a cynical political power play, which it clearly is also. So far, he has spilled a lot of ink on the analogies but I’m not sure the Believers will be convinced. He needs to show the unmitigated disaster it is for the supposed beneficiaries; as I’m sure he will having listened to him on the Glenn Show.
If the Elect are from institutions like SF MOMA, Washington Post, Harvard, etc. then these combined institutions must be the Cathedral:
“The cathedral” is just a short way to say “journalism plus academia”—in other words, the intellectual institutions at the center of modern society, just as the Church was the intellectual institution at the center of medieval society."
"The mystery of the cathedral is that all the modern world’s legitimate and prestigious intellectual institutions, even though they have no central organizational connection, behave in many ways as if they were a single organizational structure.
Most notably, this pseudo-structure is synoptic: it has one clear doctrine or perspective. It always agrees with itself. Still more puzzlingly, its doctrine is not static; it evolves; this doctrine has a predictable direction of evolution, and the whole structure moves together.
For instance: in 2021, Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post are on the same page. If there exists any doctrinal difference between any two of these prestigious American institutions, it is too ineffable for anyone but a Yale man to discern.
In 1951, Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post were on the same page. But Yale in 1951 was on nowhere near the same page as Yale in 2021. If you could teleport either Yale into the other’s time zone, they would see each other as a den of intellectual criminals.
So it’s not just that everyone—at least, everyone cool—is on the same page. It’s more like: everyone is reading the same book—at the same speed."
A correction: Gary Garrels was the the senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, not its president. Mr. Garrels championed the careers, at crucial, early stages, of several African-American artist such as Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon.
I knew him and his husband, not well at all, but in social passing. Hadn't seen them in many, many years, though.
You are letting it all hang out——-I have read you for a while——This attack on Elect is welcome. But we also know many do not fully know you——which is even better—-because you have a lot to give. It’s presented as an “aside” here in your mockery of the Elect—-but readers must know more is to come. I look forward to it.
I've been following your writing for some time now. It helps me stay sane in a world that has gone crazy. Thank you.
I read this today and thought I would share since it buttresses your argument that woke is a religion by outlining legal recourse for pushing back: https://www.newsweek.com/save-americas-workers-church-wokeness-opinion-1573536 If America is truly a litigious society, as some have claimed, it may end up being our saving grace.
Critical mass is building against this tide. I have hope for the first time in a long time. Maybe we can disempower this zealotry and get back to the business of pursuing practical, workable solutions to systemic problems that introduce or exacerbate inequalities so that real people's lives change for the better. Time to start lifting up instead of punching down. Even shifting focus thusly, we will argue endlessly over what the appropriate solutions are. But, that would still be far better than where we are now.
The US has survived and moved past several religious waves in our history including the Salem witch trials, the first and second Great Awakenings, prohibition, the McCarthy era, etc. Purists will continue trying to impose their utopia, as they have throughout history. We just need to remain rational and patiently expose their totalitarian and inhumane inclinations (as John and many others are doing).
I am grateful for all of the brilliant minds who are courageously objecting, not to the professed goals of anti-race and CRT, but to the Machiavellian methods leveraged in pursuit of those goals. There is no way we can solve the problem of inequality by resorting to dehumanization/infantilization. It is an excellent tactic if you are seeking revenge or to feed an egoistic self righteousness. But, not if you are actually seeking true uplift for those who have been treated unfairly.
Bravo John. Of course I follow what you’re saying here and of course I will stay with you for the next chapter and the ones after that. Dull? Hardly. Essential. Keep it coming.
From Batya Ungar-Sargon. Another excellent distillation of what’s at work here. I think it fits alongside Prof McWhorter’s thesis that we’re dealing with a religious elect, and Benjamin Studebaker’s idea that a declassed, would-be credentialed professional class quasi-precariat is desperately or pretentiously trying to compensate by signaling they *get it*, that they belong with the 10-20% titled, financially comfortable cultural elite, rather than the deplorable rabble and hapless rubes or the financially comfortable but culturally out of touch folks in skilled trades, construction contractors, or small business owners who didn’t go to a name-brand colleges or bother with MAs as mostly a social credential, and who aren’t fluent in or would scorn the suffocating, ever-mutating woke jargon, the constantly-uttered personal mission statements about “being 100% committed to dismantling systemic, structural, institutional racism and white supremacy in all its forms”.
This declassed quasi-precariat might not be invited to the same parties or be able to afford the same properties, but many of them are probably well-accustomed to the quotidian routines that pervade middling private sector, nonprofit, and government employment: the endless staff meetings, PowerPoint presentations, and break-out sessions that go nowhere (and of course the DEI lectures that instruct them to interrogate themselves and mistrust others in a way that renders them hyper-sensitive to combating racial oppression without much concrete idea of how - other than to obsessively think about it, talk about it, and challenge (accuse) others. Then, in their free time, it’s book clubs featuring a constant diet of DiAngelo and Kendi, algorithmically-highlighted streaming-service docs and series fetishizing decades if not centuries-old historical oppression as present-day 5-alarm emergency, and too much scrolling through the posts of like-minded people on social media who are all competing to virtue post and signal their anguish that their black friends and acquaintances “literally can’t step outside without knowing they could be gunned down by the police at any moment”* (I’ve seen multiple friends post this sentiment almost verbatim.) In other words, they’re accustomed to talking rather than doing. And, as Beedot writes below, Trump’s election made it absolutely urgent for a lot of white people of this ilk especially to broadcast 24/7 they weren’t like those other deplorable white people.
I am that rare breed of closet scholar who doesn't have a 4-year degree even though I was valedictorian of my HS class but rose up from blue collar to the upper middle class on the computer wave. I was well-versed in self-righteous behavior from growing up in a very religious culture. However, this did not prepare me for the astonishing arrogance of the professional class. I thought they would see me as a peer because in spite of the lack of paper, I am studied in a variety of topics. Both my husband and I are autodidacts.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It doesn't matter how gifted you are to these people. If you don't signal correctly or swallow their narrative, they write you off with disdain. They see my refusal to dehumanize those they designate as "deplorables" as a capital offense. I have to hold my nose more often than not when rubbing shoulders with them, which is more frequently than I would like now that I've moved into an UMC neighborhood.
I used to think being on the outside looking in was an impediment and yearned to join the club and be accepted. I am now seeing that my independence could be construed as a strength and possibly even a blessing in this crazy time. Also, because I am a free thinker, I find the "quotidian routines" you spoke of stifling in addition to being inauthentic and so I became an independent business owner. Thus, I have not had to endure DEI and remain outside the fray.
As a veteran (US Army), I can not and will not turn my back on any American no matter what stripe, particularly not the least among us, just to score brownie points with snobs. I am heartened in finding like-minded persons on this and a few other boards (Taibbi, Greewald, Weiss, et al) who appear to share if not my exact political views, a general concern over the current hysteria and how it might impact our country long-term and a general consensus that all voices have a right to be heard and considered but not a right to dominate.
I think what bothers me is that this is really about white people using non-whites as weapons to be snobby to other whites who don't share their fake wokeness. They could honestly care less about black or brown people. Once Trump was elected, I saw a sudden increased interest in calling out others as racists. Putting a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard (my neighborhood) doesn't help anyone.
Yeah that one right there. The selective canonizing of one specific and particular victim killed in the approved kind of way. Contrasted with hundreds of innocent kids killed in a curiously invisible kind of way. It takes a concerted effort to create that kind of paradox. Like living with an elephant in a bachelor apartment who constantly takes up all the room but must be ignored anyway.
Unfortunately I think the media ignores this problem. It's heartbreaking to see so many people lose their lives, many of them young men. I wish everyone cared about this. Near where I live in Baltimore, the community is coming together to try to stop murders. It's not a simple solution to defund the police because the police have to be involved but there are also has to be money put towards social fixes. The police are not social workers.
YES. The way I put it is that they are well-off white people wrestling other well-off white people for the tiara of Wokest White Person in the Country Club. They think the point of civil rights movements is to make them look good, not to get traditionally disempowered people the rights and opportunities that they've been unfairly denied for so long.
As far as they are concerned, a civil rights movement that accomplishes nothing for marginalized Americans but gives them a catchy slogan to put on the back bumper of their Audi is more successful than one that actually removes unfair barriers to achievement but doesn't give them a chance to look good on camera.
I wonder all the time what kind of fear factor motivates the lemming drive. They are very much the sort that understands well enough what the targets of their malice stand to lose. The cancel culture they revel in is in reality, not much different than a mugging that repeats itself daily and practically forever.
Once signed up tor that blessed immunity card, there is daily work to be done to ensure its validity. And even then, no sure guarantee.
They do what they do far less for love than out of fear. And that kind of fear has the most curious of bedfellows. A sublime hatred for all those whose weakness for whatever reason, cannot stand up to cancellation.
I totally agree. It's also a way to look down on people in flyover country when actually flyover country has become pretty diverse. I'm so tired of hearing the word "marginalized" coming out of people's mouths. And it's actually very stereotypical to assume that someone who just moved to this country and is Latino and Asian (or African and Caribbean) to fall in line with how you expect them to vote and think. I'm half Filipino and gasped when I saw people actually refer to Filipinos and Filipinx. I guarantee you that no one in my family has heard of this word or would identify with it.
That curious war on 'whiteness' that actually so many people who are not white at all, actually respect and even thrive from. The White Elite don't seem to get that, for some strange reason. Centuries' worth of enlightenment and useful knowledge that bubbles in that soup pot for all to benefit. If it were left up to fools that baby would go out with the bathwater.
Labels are stereotypes which allow us to make quick judgements about people and avoid the messy mess of dealing with individuals. Many of the new labels don’t conform to any reality and thus don’t have the utility of stereotypes.
Yes, we all use stereotypes to get through life and make quick judgements. They really have never confirmed to any reality. Just think - if you recently moved to the US as a new immigrant and are trying to navigate living here, how would you have any clue as to the racial narrative you are supposed to suddenly see yourself in? Or would want to? Most people want to live their life with joy, not see themselves as a constant victim (even if they are often victims because of structural systems). Also, not everyone know what "race" they belong to in the US.
Agreed, but why do we have to use the word, stereotype? A stereotypical thing could be a successful pop star releasing the same cookie cutter formatted pop song over and over again. Or an excuse to believe that all southeast Asians are nearsighted, and brilliant in the maths and sciences.
But as to bias:
As a discriminating person, one may be acutely aware of their power to choose this over that, constantly, on an ongoing basis. Which can give one the sense that they apply brainwork, logic, esthetics, preference, experience, and an ongoing personal evolution to overcome what otherwise might wind up existing in a state of no opinion, no idea whatsoever of a sense of identifying excellence over mundane, well crafted over ordinary, beautiful over shabby. And these are just the most obvious examples.
I am biased toward a superb recipe for homemade lasagna. The frozen stuff sold in grocery stores is tenth rate by comparison.
So when the word, 'biased' is reduced down to one thing and one thing only, in other words, racialized to the Nth degree, it completely ignores the fact that almost all humans in the world (including non-white humans) practice bias all the time. Thus it ever was, and always shall be. To plan some other way to be human strikes me as a very non-human artifact.
I think the stereotype I was referring to and that the author here wrote his recent chapter on is for white liberals to assume that anyone non-white experiences everything through the prism of not being white and then votes accordingly (for Dems) - though some of the comments here by white people against woke culture are incredibly offensive and would affect my voting over time, haha. Hopefully we can get past all this eventually as the country gets more diverse. I do agree that you can really function and get through your day without bias but with my messy language. that wasn't what I was referring to
Those quick judgements are the very stuff and essence of that most unholy collection of unconscious biases. The ones we perform every minute of every hour of every day. The luxury of free choice. Like choosing a Toyota over a Mazda. Or a leather over a cotton. Or a Harvard over a Princeton. And so on. Imagine the dark urge to mess with that?
I would counter that a true stereotype is always true for the group but tells us nothing about the individual. Thus, they confirm directly with reality. If a stereotype did not conform to reality it would either be a joke or a slander.
A purely gratuitous comment; but: this is my first experience with Substack. I am greatly impressed with the quality of discussion here about John's book! Typically serious, thoughtful comments. (Is it just me, or is this unusual on the internet?) I for one am very happy that we have been given this occasion. Thx!
Maybe it depends on who you read on Substack, but the few people I read here (Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald and of course McWhorter) are overwhelmingly interested in civil discourse.
Agreed, Michael. I’m learning a lot from not only the original posts but from fellow commenters who are naturally better-informed about some foci than I and who of course bring their own experiences and perspectives to the discussion. It seems like two things commenters have in common are a genuine interest in ideas and a shared respect for the irreducible dignity of people as individual human beings first rather than deriving their value based primarily on group membership.
Well, that is what they want to do In what ways though?
Interesting the mention of Martin Luther. In many ways, he certainly changed the world, as a leader of the Reformation, being one of the first to create a Protestant church in Christendom. As such, there are now 700 million Protestants and the 1.2 billion Catholics are also in a group that was changed by the Reformation.
Many of the churches have been changed by wokeism, but that has been going on for some time. My nephew is a pastor, but it is hard to tell which religion he follows - Christianity or the Cult of Woke. He would claim they are aligned.
You mentioned the homeless, but many of these people, at least online, will scoff at the idea of helping the poor. They don't want to help the poor, they want to help BLACK people (but of course, when we say Black Lives Matter we are NOT saying that ONLY black lives matter). If they did start a soup kitchen, then all of the white homeless would have to admit their privilege before they could get some soup. Otherwise - no soup for you Nazis.
I remember bitter argument on DU (Democratic Underground) from people who insisted that economic justice not be allowed to usurp social justice. But, also, to them social justice was/is NOT just anti-racism, it is also 3rd wave feminism. Whites, after all, are not the only privileged group - there's male privilege too (and straight privilege, and post Jenner, also cis privilege). (and able-bodied privilege, and all the other aleph dimensions of intersectionality, but those seem to be the big 4 these days - race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.)
According to the Post's 3000-word article on the Halloween party affair, Shafer was a government contractor, not a Washington Post employee.
A Newbie. I don't precisely understand your comment section, but I shall submit -->
1. What is "racism," or racist? How does the label relate to "native" Americans and tribes? Perhaps it might be uncomfortable to consider this, both philosophically and legally, but it is an issue that I would like you to address. "RACISM" is the basis for tribal rights. Blood quantum does define segregated privileges and rights, though it stands in distinct contradiction to the 14th Amendment.
2. CULTURE(s) ?
....or, subcultures? Huntin' and fishin' culture of rural folks vs hip-hop and gangsta-rap? Consider the view count of 700 million+ of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPw_izFr5PA&ab_channel=Tekashi6ix9ine
3. Who identifies with tekashi6ix9ine? Or others from that cultural genre? What is the mind-set of middle school kids who adore that culture? Certainly, it is not academic in the conventional sense. No wonder that academic performance of black youth affirms a performance "gap." Unless the culture changes, why would any rational person believe outcomes will change? IMO, in future chapters, you must address the cultural divide.
4. Take time and listen to the music that has captured their souls. Listen to the lyrics.
5. Suggestion--> interview members of the National Honor Society at an 'urban' high school. Ask them to explain the performance gap of their peers. Ask them about youth culture. Then, randomly talk with kids in grades 7-10. Review their music-listening tastes. Ask them to describe whom they admire.
That YT video just absolute garbage. I try to tell myself that I'm just sounding like my grandpa when he saw a Smells Like Teen Spirit music video in the early '90s and shook his head but that trash? I'm sorry, that is fundamentally something different, something deranged and damaging, especially to young kids.
Dr. McWhorter,
It would be illuminating for you to give some names to The Elect. You have mentioned a few names, but there must be many more to have constructed such an alternate universe. Time to call them out!
He also doesn't like to specifically call out names but he and Glenn often indirectly refer to them as "the people with three names". Michael Eric Dyson, Ibrim X Kendi, Nicole Hannah Jones, etc. You could identify many by identifying members of the professoriate employed in "ethnic studies" departments at major universities, also known as grievance studies. In addition, anytime these people are called out, they and their defenders, with laughable predictability, will say any push back or critique they receive is "harassment" or "online violence" and thus often it is more effective to refer to them in the abstract.
I suspect they are truly leaderless. In the sense that who is there who would claim ownership? Followship less than fellowship, surely. As to calling them out, they do that better among themselves than do those who oppose them directly.
Dr. McWhorter,
Thank you for your continued efforts to illuminate this challenging subject, and to provide an informed perspective about and context for this phenomenon.
"Public Discourse" recently published an article authored by Rev. James Wood titled, "Reforming our Successor Civil Religion" that echoes your parallel of "wokeism" to religion, albeit from a more explicitly theological bent. Definitely interesting reading, and I found I better followed Rev. Wood's arguments having had the benefit of yours.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful exposition on this complex subject, and I look eagerly forward to your next installment.
Respectfully,
Steve
I agree with the overall thesis that wokeness is a religion and love Dr. McWhorter's work, but I think the point about the Elect not actually trying to bring about results is missing something. Namely, my impression is not that the Elect enjoy grandstanding and making symbolic gestures (changing words and names, etc.) while not actually caring to alleviate poverty and so on. I imagine that many in the Elect are sincere in their conscious intent to be active in making black people's lives better but don't want to admit (not even to themselves) that solutions are not simple or obvious; optimal concrete solutions may in fact be quite complicated and indirect, and the low-hanging fruit for means of bringing about racial equity has mostly already been picked some 50 years ago. Moreover, the actual concrete solutions may require recognizing certain truths that are uncomfortable or taboo because they go beyond "all of Black America's failures are an immediate, direct result of current oppression". So, with a lack of simple, obvious-looking strategies for improving the welfare of African-Americans at hand, the Elect spend a lot of time bloviating and gesturing vaguely at solutions that are "out there" if only we can all get on the same page, and pursuing actions that are simple and have mostly symbolic rather than concrete significance.
Again, I don't think this damages the claim that wokeness is a religion, but maybe it sheds light on some aspects of how anti-racist activism came to be a religion (the aspect of saying a lot of things and punishing those who contradict the dogma without seeming to get around to much action).
(By the way, is there a way of creating boldface or italics in this interface? Last time I tried <i> </i> and it didn't work...)
The Prof wears his TDS like a badge of honor, and that’s ok because I’m not looking for an echo chamber. It will date his needed book though and might best be left out. He clearly dislikes Christianity, and I would say doesn’t understand evangelical Christianity very well. I bring that up, as some others have, because it confuses his case for Wokeism being a new religion. I agree that it is a good analogy, but like any analogy it should not be pushed too far as it breaks down. Others have suggested it is merely a cynical political power play, which it clearly is also. So far, he has spilled a lot of ink on the analogies but I’m not sure the Believers will be convinced. He needs to show the unmitigated disaster it is for the supposed beneficiaries; as I’m sure he will having listened to him on the Glenn Show.
If the Elect are from institutions like SF MOMA, Washington Post, Harvard, etc. then these combined institutions must be the Cathedral:
“The cathedral” is just a short way to say “journalism plus academia”—in other words, the intellectual institutions at the center of modern society, just as the Church was the intellectual institution at the center of medieval society."
"The mystery of the cathedral is that all the modern world’s legitimate and prestigious intellectual institutions, even though they have no central organizational connection, behave in many ways as if they were a single organizational structure.
Most notably, this pseudo-structure is synoptic: it has one clear doctrine or perspective. It always agrees with itself. Still more puzzlingly, its doctrine is not static; it evolves; this doctrine has a predictable direction of evolution, and the whole structure moves together.
For instance: in 2021, Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post are on the same page. If there exists any doctrinal difference between any two of these prestigious American institutions, it is too ineffable for anyone but a Yale man to discern.
In 1951, Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post were on the same page. But Yale in 1951 was on nowhere near the same page as Yale in 2021. If you could teleport either Yale into the other’s time zone, they would see each other as a den of intellectual criminals.
So it’s not just that everyone—at least, everyone cool—is on the same page. It’s more like: everyone is reading the same book—at the same speed."
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/a-brief-explanation-of-the-cathedral
A sane voice in an insane world. Thank you.
A correction: Gary Garrels was the the senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, not its president. Mr. Garrels championed the careers, at crucial, early stages, of several African-American artist such as Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon.
I knew him and his husband, not well at all, but in social passing. Hadn't seen them in many, many years, though.
https://www.sfmoma.org/press-release/statement-on-the-resignation-of-gary-garrels/
You are letting it all hang out——-I have read you for a while——This attack on Elect is welcome. But we also know many do not fully know you——which is even better—-because you have a lot to give. It’s presented as an “aside” here in your mockery of the Elect—-but readers must know more is to come. I look forward to it.
I've been following your writing for some time now. It helps me stay sane in a world that has gone crazy. Thank you.
I read this today and thought I would share since it buttresses your argument that woke is a religion by outlining legal recourse for pushing back: https://www.newsweek.com/save-americas-workers-church-wokeness-opinion-1573536 If America is truly a litigious society, as some have claimed, it may end up being our saving grace.
Critical mass is building against this tide. I have hope for the first time in a long time. Maybe we can disempower this zealotry and get back to the business of pursuing practical, workable solutions to systemic problems that introduce or exacerbate inequalities so that real people's lives change for the better. Time to start lifting up instead of punching down. Even shifting focus thusly, we will argue endlessly over what the appropriate solutions are. But, that would still be far better than where we are now.
The US has survived and moved past several religious waves in our history including the Salem witch trials, the first and second Great Awakenings, prohibition, the McCarthy era, etc. Purists will continue trying to impose their utopia, as they have throughout history. We just need to remain rational and patiently expose their totalitarian and inhumane inclinations (as John and many others are doing).
I am grateful for all of the brilliant minds who are courageously objecting, not to the professed goals of anti-race and CRT, but to the Machiavellian methods leveraged in pursuit of those goals. There is no way we can solve the problem of inequality by resorting to dehumanization/infantilization. It is an excellent tactic if you are seeking revenge or to feed an egoistic self righteousness. But, not if you are actually seeking true uplift for those who have been treated unfairly.
Bravo John. Of course I follow what you’re saying here and of course I will stay with you for the next chapter and the ones after that. Dull? Hardly. Essential. Keep it coming.
https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-warped-vision-of-anti-racism
From Batya Ungar-Sargon. Another excellent distillation of what’s at work here. I think it fits alongside Prof McWhorter’s thesis that we’re dealing with a religious elect, and Benjamin Studebaker’s idea that a declassed, would-be credentialed professional class quasi-precariat is desperately or pretentiously trying to compensate by signaling they *get it*, that they belong with the 10-20% titled, financially comfortable cultural elite, rather than the deplorable rabble and hapless rubes or the financially comfortable but culturally out of touch folks in skilled trades, construction contractors, or small business owners who didn’t go to a name-brand colleges or bother with MAs as mostly a social credential, and who aren’t fluent in or would scorn the suffocating, ever-mutating woke jargon, the constantly-uttered personal mission statements about “being 100% committed to dismantling systemic, structural, institutional racism and white supremacy in all its forms”.
This declassed quasi-precariat might not be invited to the same parties or be able to afford the same properties, but many of them are probably well-accustomed to the quotidian routines that pervade middling private sector, nonprofit, and government employment: the endless staff meetings, PowerPoint presentations, and break-out sessions that go nowhere (and of course the DEI lectures that instruct them to interrogate themselves and mistrust others in a way that renders them hyper-sensitive to combating racial oppression without much concrete idea of how - other than to obsessively think about it, talk about it, and challenge (accuse) others. Then, in their free time, it’s book clubs featuring a constant diet of DiAngelo and Kendi, algorithmically-highlighted streaming-service docs and series fetishizing decades if not centuries-old historical oppression as present-day 5-alarm emergency, and too much scrolling through the posts of like-minded people on social media who are all competing to virtue post and signal their anguish that their black friends and acquaintances “literally can’t step outside without knowing they could be gunned down by the police at any moment”* (I’ve seen multiple friends post this sentiment almost verbatim.) In other words, they’re accustomed to talking rather than doing. And, as Beedot writes below, Trump’s election made it absolutely urgent for a lot of white people of this ilk especially to broadcast 24/7 they weren’t like those other deplorable white people.
I am that rare breed of closet scholar who doesn't have a 4-year degree even though I was valedictorian of my HS class but rose up from blue collar to the upper middle class on the computer wave. I was well-versed in self-righteous behavior from growing up in a very religious culture. However, this did not prepare me for the astonishing arrogance of the professional class. I thought they would see me as a peer because in spite of the lack of paper, I am studied in a variety of topics. Both my husband and I are autodidacts.
Nothing could be further from the truth. It doesn't matter how gifted you are to these people. If you don't signal correctly or swallow their narrative, they write you off with disdain. They see my refusal to dehumanize those they designate as "deplorables" as a capital offense. I have to hold my nose more often than not when rubbing shoulders with them, which is more frequently than I would like now that I've moved into an UMC neighborhood.
I used to think being on the outside looking in was an impediment and yearned to join the club and be accepted. I am now seeing that my independence could be construed as a strength and possibly even a blessing in this crazy time. Also, because I am a free thinker, I find the "quotidian routines" you spoke of stifling in addition to being inauthentic and so I became an independent business owner. Thus, I have not had to endure DEI and remain outside the fray.
As a veteran (US Army), I can not and will not turn my back on any American no matter what stripe, particularly not the least among us, just to score brownie points with snobs. I am heartened in finding like-minded persons on this and a few other boards (Taibbi, Greewald, Weiss, et al) who appear to share if not my exact political views, a general concern over the current hysteria and how it might impact our country long-term and a general consensus that all voices have a right to be heard and considered but not a right to dominate.
Good for you. Stay strong. Stay free. Keep learning.
I think what bothers me is that this is really about white people using non-whites as weapons to be snobby to other whites who don't share their fake wokeness. They could honestly care less about black or brown people. Once Trump was elected, I saw a sudden increased interest in calling out others as racists. Putting a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard (my neighborhood) doesn't help anyone.
As evidenced by any lack of interest in violent crimes committed by blacks on blacks.
Yeah that one right there. The selective canonizing of one specific and particular victim killed in the approved kind of way. Contrasted with hundreds of innocent kids killed in a curiously invisible kind of way. It takes a concerted effort to create that kind of paradox. Like living with an elephant in a bachelor apartment who constantly takes up all the room but must be ignored anyway.
Unfortunately I think the media ignores this problem. It's heartbreaking to see so many people lose their lives, many of them young men. I wish everyone cared about this. Near where I live in Baltimore, the community is coming together to try to stop murders. It's not a simple solution to defund the police because the police have to be involved but there are also has to be money put towards social fixes. The police are not social workers.
Malcom X. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5HyL6QNGbM
YES. The way I put it is that they are well-off white people wrestling other well-off white people for the tiara of Wokest White Person in the Country Club. They think the point of civil rights movements is to make them look good, not to get traditionally disempowered people the rights and opportunities that they've been unfairly denied for so long.
As far as they are concerned, a civil rights movement that accomplishes nothing for marginalized Americans but gives them a catchy slogan to put on the back bumper of their Audi is more successful than one that actually removes unfair barriers to achievement but doesn't give them a chance to look good on camera.
I wonder all the time what kind of fear factor motivates the lemming drive. They are very much the sort that understands well enough what the targets of their malice stand to lose. The cancel culture they revel in is in reality, not much different than a mugging that repeats itself daily and practically forever.
Once signed up tor that blessed immunity card, there is daily work to be done to ensure its validity. And even then, no sure guarantee.
They do what they do far less for love than out of fear. And that kind of fear has the most curious of bedfellows. A sublime hatred for all those whose weakness for whatever reason, cannot stand up to cancellation.
I totally agree. It's also a way to look down on people in flyover country when actually flyover country has become pretty diverse. I'm so tired of hearing the word "marginalized" coming out of people's mouths. And it's actually very stereotypical to assume that someone who just moved to this country and is Latino and Asian (or African and Caribbean) to fall in line with how you expect them to vote and think. I'm half Filipino and gasped when I saw people actually refer to Filipinos and Filipinx. I guarantee you that no one in my family has heard of this word or would identify with it.
That curious war on 'whiteness' that actually so many people who are not white at all, actually respect and even thrive from. The White Elite don't seem to get that, for some strange reason. Centuries' worth of enlightenment and useful knowledge that bubbles in that soup pot for all to benefit. If it were left up to fools that baby would go out with the bathwater.
Labels are stereotypes which allow us to make quick judgements about people and avoid the messy mess of dealing with individuals. Many of the new labels don’t conform to any reality and thus don’t have the utility of stereotypes.
Yes, we all use stereotypes to get through life and make quick judgements. They really have never confirmed to any reality. Just think - if you recently moved to the US as a new immigrant and are trying to navigate living here, how would you have any clue as to the racial narrative you are supposed to suddenly see yourself in? Or would want to? Most people want to live their life with joy, not see themselves as a constant victim (even if they are often victims because of structural systems). Also, not everyone know what "race" they belong to in the US.
Agreed, but why do we have to use the word, stereotype? A stereotypical thing could be a successful pop star releasing the same cookie cutter formatted pop song over and over again. Or an excuse to believe that all southeast Asians are nearsighted, and brilliant in the maths and sciences.
But as to bias:
As a discriminating person, one may be acutely aware of their power to choose this over that, constantly, on an ongoing basis. Which can give one the sense that they apply brainwork, logic, esthetics, preference, experience, and an ongoing personal evolution to overcome what otherwise might wind up existing in a state of no opinion, no idea whatsoever of a sense of identifying excellence over mundane, well crafted over ordinary, beautiful over shabby. And these are just the most obvious examples.
I am biased toward a superb recipe for homemade lasagna. The frozen stuff sold in grocery stores is tenth rate by comparison.
So when the word, 'biased' is reduced down to one thing and one thing only, in other words, racialized to the Nth degree, it completely ignores the fact that almost all humans in the world (including non-white humans) practice bias all the time. Thus it ever was, and always shall be. To plan some other way to be human strikes me as a very non-human artifact.
I think the stereotype I was referring to and that the author here wrote his recent chapter on is for white liberals to assume that anyone non-white experiences everything through the prism of not being white and then votes accordingly (for Dems) - though some of the comments here by white people against woke culture are incredibly offensive and would affect my voting over time, haha. Hopefully we can get past all this eventually as the country gets more diverse. I do agree that you can really function and get through your day without bias but with my messy language. that wasn't what I was referring to
Those quick judgements are the very stuff and essence of that most unholy collection of unconscious biases. The ones we perform every minute of every hour of every day. The luxury of free choice. Like choosing a Toyota over a Mazda. Or a leather over a cotton. Or a Harvard over a Princeton. And so on. Imagine the dark urge to mess with that?
I would counter that a true stereotype is always true for the group but tells us nothing about the individual. Thus, they confirm directly with reality. If a stereotype did not conform to reality it would either be a joke or a slander.
I'm not sure I can think of a true stereotype though I use them all the time when my friends never show up on time .....
A purely gratuitous comment; but: this is my first experience with Substack. I am greatly impressed with the quality of discussion here about John's book! Typically serious, thoughtful comments. (Is it just me, or is this unusual on the internet?) I for one am very happy that we have been given this occasion. Thx!
It’s astonishing that one needn’t buy an argument to civilly discuss the topic. This is my first substack but I enjoy other sites that challenge me.
Maybe it depends on who you read on Substack, but the few people I read here (Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald and of course McWhorter) are overwhelmingly interested in civil discourse.
My choices on Substack too. Civility - so welcome after many years of finger-pointing from self-appointed moral hall monitors.
Greenwald's in particular, and I'm no lefty.
Even more heartening to hear.
Agreed, Michael. I’m learning a lot from not only the original posts but from fellow commenters who are naturally better-informed about some foci than I and who of course bring their own experiences and perspectives to the discussion. It seems like two things commenters have in common are a genuine interest in ideas and a shared respect for the irreducible dignity of people as individual human beings first rather than deriving their value based primarily on group membership.
"The Elect are changing America".
Well, that is what they want to do In what ways though?
Interesting the mention of Martin Luther. In many ways, he certainly changed the world, as a leader of the Reformation, being one of the first to create a Protestant church in Christendom. As such, there are now 700 million Protestants and the 1.2 billion Catholics are also in a group that was changed by the Reformation.
Many of the churches have been changed by wokeism, but that has been going on for some time. My nephew is a pastor, but it is hard to tell which religion he follows - Christianity or the Cult of Woke. He would claim they are aligned.
You mentioned the homeless, but many of these people, at least online, will scoff at the idea of helping the poor. They don't want to help the poor, they want to help BLACK people (but of course, when we say Black Lives Matter we are NOT saying that ONLY black lives matter). If they did start a soup kitchen, then all of the white homeless would have to admit their privilege before they could get some soup. Otherwise - no soup for you Nazis.
I remember bitter argument on DU (Democratic Underground) from people who insisted that economic justice not be allowed to usurp social justice. But, also, to them social justice was/is NOT just anti-racism, it is also 3rd wave feminism. Whites, after all, are not the only privileged group - there's male privilege too (and straight privilege, and post Jenner, also cis privilege). (and able-bodied privilege, and all the other aleph dimensions of intersectionality, but those seem to be the big 4 these days - race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.)