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Wokeness was envisioned as a new reboot of the coalition of the oppressed.Those purportedly victimized by traditional America would find “intersectional” solidarity in their victimhood owing to the supposed sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other alleged American sins, past and present. The so-called white male heterosexual victimizing class was collective to be held responsible for their sinful triad of white “rage,” “supremacy,” and “privilege.” Class considerations became passe. The Duchess of Sussex, and the billionaires Oprah Winfrey and LeBron James, shared grievances against all whites, whether they hailed from Martha’s Vineyard or impoverished East Palestine, Ohio.A bicoastal elite would draft the woke agenda, and the oppressed would follow as ordered.That top-down blueprint would embrace massive multibillion-dollar reparations to blacks.
In lockstep, all victims would rally around a Green New Deal that mandated high energy costs to discourage the consumption of fossil fuels.
The new transgender canon mandated three sexes. Sex is socially rather than biologically determined. And there is a large, oppressed, and transgender population, which presents the subsequent great civil rights struggle for America.
Historical wokeism lodged a list of grievances against the supposedly flawed American past. Indicting the dead required statues to be toppled. Names had to be changed. Histories were to be rewritten. Even the foundational date of America was to be reconsidered and altered.
Yet, the rainbow fabric of woke is now fraying – and for a variety of reasons.
For one thing, woke took off after the perfect storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, the devastating lockdowns, the 120 days of violent rioting and looting following the death of George Floyd, and years of endemic Trump Derangement Syndrome. Most of those catalysts are waning. Temporarily unhinged Americans are slowly reviving. Millions of the comatose are waking up to normality – and don’t recognize their own country.
Two, woke is retrogressive, reactionary, and anti-civilizational. Decriminalizing the legal code, defunding the police, failing to apply norms to the homeless population, and destroying meritocracy have all hollowed out our major cities.
San Francisco was a far cleaner, safer, and kinder city 20, 40, or 80 years ago than it is today.
A woke FBI, Pentagon, or airline industry becomes a matter of life and death.
Three, in modern America, class is now a far more accurate metric of oppression than race or gender.
It is one thing to restrict fossil fuel development if you are in the upper one percent income bracket, quite another if you commute 50 miles a day in a used car. If there are to be reparations, why include Eric Holder or Al Sharpton, but not indigent Hispanics, Asians, and poor whites?
The multimillionaire, and prep-school and Ivy-League educated former President Barack Obama may castigate the unwoke Senator Tim Scott, R-S.C., for his absence of victimhood. But from which of his three enclaves does Obama do so – the Kalorama mansion, the Martha’s Vineyard estate, or the restricted-access beachfront retreat in Hawaii?
Four, religions also trump race. Hispanic-American Catholics and Middle-Eastern-American Muslims have more in common with so-called white Christians than they do with an atheist, or agnostic woke elite who pushes the lie that the anti-religion Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are a mere charity group.
Muslim-American communities in Michigan do not want children seeing drag queen shows or the pride flag flying with equal status to the American flag. The Catholic Hispanic community of Los Angeles has little tolerance for lurid anti-Christian motifs that preview a Los Angeles Dodgers game.
Five, wokeism is cannibalistic. Even the children of woke architects with perfect SAT scores and 4.0 grade point averages are being rejected on the basis of their race at their coveted Ivy League schools.
Neither the mansions of Beverly Hills nor estates of Presidio Heights qualify as sanctuaries from violent criminals, who are now exempted by the anointed from legal consequences.
The wokest of Hollywood celebs will soon lose movie roles and be disqualified for film awards on the basis of their race.
Even the most left-wing of movie directors do not want to be ordered by Soviet-style commissars to hire their crews, actors, and writers on the basis of race.
Six, wokeism is a dangerous diversion of American resources.
The United States may have sponsored gender studies programs, flown pride flags, and bragged of George Floyd murals in Kabul. But meanwhile its military suffered the most humiliating defeat in a half-century, as it skedaddled from Afghanistan, leaving behind billions of dollars in deadly arms for terrorists.
Our elite work to ban plentiful natural gas, subsidize transgender activism abroad, and lecture on sexual identities in the military. China’s elite builds dozens of coal and nuclear plants, and doubles the size of its navy, while preparing to absorb Taiwan.
Americans are rejecting wokeism because they finally are realizing that if they do not, they will not have a civilization left.
A most optimistic essay by Dr. Hanson. One can only hope that he is not merely seeing the lone swallow whose presence does not make a Spring, but that he is seeing many sparrows and a new Spring instead. Or a new dawn of freedom for the American people, which is overdue after this century-long night of progressivism.
There is no reason to be optimistic, quite the contrary.
The values of freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of individual, personal, happiness on Earth, in other words individualism, individual rights, and private property rights, in other words Laissez-Faire Capitalism, are SECULAR and RATIONAL values. These values have nothing to do with the mystical, the supernatural, the other-worldly, or life after death. They have everything to do with this secular life on Earth. They can only be defended by a philosophy of consistent secular reason and secular logic, based on demonstrable secular facts of secular reality. That philosophy is Objectivism.
Religious unreason is not the antidote for secular unreason. The irrationality of religion is not the cure for the irrationality of the secular Left. But irrationality has its limits, the human mind can deal with only so much insanity. The insanity of religion is preferable to the insanity of Marxist Wokism but the unreason of religion will only lead to the tyranny of theocracy.
Way too true, thx 1138. Bravo! Finally, someone on the right points out what should be obvious to his comrades but which has been — and will always be — the crucial issue which defines true conservative libertarianism. There was always a huge problem with lightning rods like Bill O’Reilly and Tucker Carlson decrying the secularism of the left. When Donna Brazil first beheld the reality of Steve Bannon in the White House, she made sure that the first question she asked him (and by extension President Trump) was what? You ain’t gonna be bringing that Ayn Rand into the equation, are you ? Oh no, ma’am, No way. Don’t you worry about that! Until this inconsistency is addressed the intellectual right wing will remain a tepid self defeating fringe cult forever being pushed around and smeared by idiot trans social warriors and their know nothing Marxist lifer cheerleaders in the press and academe. Get hip, conservative America. Or get annihilated.
He’s not on the right. He hates conservatives more than he loves leftists
“We have not the strength to follow our reason all the way” – La Rochefoucauld
The Judeo-Christians on the Right either do not see the contradiction between the mystical, supernatural, other-worldly, irrational, central moral code of Judaism and Christianity, namely altruism/self-sacrifice, and Laissez-Faire Capitalism, or they refuse to see it. They are either ignorant or evade.
As Ms. Rand would say of this, they want to have their cake and eat it too. Why is this? Leonard Peikoff believes it’s primarily because the religious person is terrified of self-reliance, afraid of the metaphysical reality that each one of us is fundamentally alone in the world and no supernatural magic can help us achieve our goals. The religious person is profoundly, emotionally, attached to the emotional need to believe that a supernatural God will help them in their time of need. Of course, there is no such supernatural magic in reality, so this need in practice becomes welfare programs and then full-blown socialism.
I believe that fear of death is another very strong reason mysticism and supernaturalism have such a strong grip on the religious person. There’s also the malevolent universe premise, the belief that men are innately morally depraved and cannot be trusted, and the universe is hostile to human life. This metaphysical pessimism comes from Judeo-Christianity.
Not another boring lecture. Do you actually think I read this tripe? Do you actually think anyone reads this tripe?
I think your 24/7 actual pessimism and anger come from your failure to make your arguments stick anywhere.
Ayn Rand was an atheist, but she was totally wrong about this. She was also ignorant of Judaism or Christianity because she never studied either one. She denied all religions as “mysticism” without any further commentary.
You also know nothing about Judaism or Christianity but only parrot Rand’s comments. So, no, you don’t understand anything about the metaphysics of either religion, nor is your group judgmentalism of religious people any different than racism or antisemitism. Group judgments are a harmful leftist concept, not one for individualists.
Attacking religions and religious people based on ignorance will get you nowhere. Your comments are simply demonstrating your lack of knowledge or wisdom that reveals more about you than those you attack. You need to expand your learning if you ever hope to have true wisdom.
Neither Christianity or Judaism preach self sacrifice and religion has nothing to do with political systems, except for unholy islam.
Oh poor me. No one listens to my incredible philosophy of Objectivism, or me. I keep lecturing and hectoring. I keep insulting people daily, decrying their stupidity and their attachment to religion. Why, even yesterday, I compared Judeo-Christianity to Nazism: “The evil, Judeo-Christian, Muslim, Marxist, and Nazi moral code of altruism and self-sacrifice is the absolute worst thing that could have happened to this country.”
I keep warning everyone that Christianity will lead to the tyranny of theocracy!
And no reaction from any of you troglodytes.
Well, I won’t stop. I’m going to keep insulting all of you, because that is really all I have going on in my life.
Sincerely, THX, the savior of mankind.
So what you are saying is Objectivism will make us optimistic? You are the face of Objectivism on this site and you are the most miserable hateful person we have here.
Your screeds alone would make the average objectivist suicidal. Fortunately Christians are an optimistic bunch.
Objectivism is not about optimism or pessimism but about REALISM.
Is the glass half full or half empty? The reality is the glass is half full and half empty at the same time.
In any given situation, given the facts at the time, it can be rational to be optimistic or rational to be pessimistic. Optimism and pessimism can be rational or irrational depending on the facts of a situation.
But we do live in a “benevolent universe”,
“Although accidents and failures are possible, they are not, according to Objectivism, the essence of human life. On the contrary, the achievement of values is the norm—speaking now for the moral man, moral by the Objectivist definition. Success and happiness are the metaphysically to-be-expected. In other words, Objectivism rejects the view that human fulfillment is impossible, that man is doomed to misery, that the universe is malevolent. We advocate the “benevolent universe” premise.
The “benevolent universe” does not mean that the universe feels kindly to man or that it is out to help him achieve his goals. No, the universe is neutral; it simply is; it is indifferent to you. You must care about and adapt to it, not the other way around. But reality is “benevolent” in the sense that if you do adapt to it—i.e., if you do think, value, and act rationally, then you can (and barring accidents you will) achieve your values. You will, because those values are based on reality.” – Leonard Peikoff
There is always some useless lecture from you that begins with one of your little questions and ends with some cut and paste twaddle from Lenny or Rand. In your case the glass is always half empty.
Let’s have some realism, shall we? Objectivism is not about anything. Your opening question is exhibit #1. It is simply the ravings of two lunatics, Lenny and Rand, and then parroted back through your sorry filter. Like I’m going to trust your sick interpretation on anything.
Objectivism makes zero sense to anyone with a thinking brain. It also makes zero sense to anyone who has other things to do, like doing dishes and laundry, or mowing the lawn, watching a ball game or playing with the kids. We simply don’t have time to read endless books about philosophy…or thinking about thinking.
You see, most of us have lives and we don’t sit around worrying about worthless abstractions like altruism, rational selfishness, the Christian Dark Ages, and whether Lutheran Social Services and Catholic Charities is taking in too much money from the Government.
Maybe someday you will realize you wasted your life on nothing.
All the values you described as secular and rational are promoted in the Bible. You’d know that if you’d ever read it.
What works for you works for you. What works for me works for me. You won’t get very far dictating rationality to people. There are far too many types of people and belief systems in the world for that. If each of us examined what we actually believed and stood up for those values unwaveringly, we would all be just fine. Some would win and some would lose, but still – fine.
The problem, I think, is in putting one’s faith in groups – any group. Every group, no matter how noble or well-meaning, is only as good as its weakest member. It’s only as smart as it’s dumbest member. This country was started as a place where free men and women could go to think and decide for themselves, individually. So, for as long as I can, I will do that, And I will do my best, and hope others will do the same.
Woke has made protected classes into privileged classes. Americans hate privilege. They hate being told their hard earned achievement isn’t earned but privilege while pain and failure of protected groups is the real token of privilege and a claim to the product of their labor.
The Marxist dictum, from each according to their ability to each according to their need, is for losers, scoundrels, and charlatans. In the end it won’t fly.
The biggest example of black privilege (aside from affirmative-action & contract set asides) is the license to commit felonies with little attention paid to it.
I don’t know the name of the black trans guy who raped two 15 year old girls in Loudoun County.
You only find out their names if they die during their criminal stunt by an evil white European.
And if street-trash like Floyd overdoses on fentanyl, the jury will ignore it and still convict for simply being white.
I’m not seeing the “white privilege”.
(A white guy in Dallas died in similar circumstances as Floyd. Few even know it happened, let alone any names.)
Communism FAILS EVERY TIME IT IS TRIED
Real Americans who love the Constitution hate privilege but plenty of bad Americans love it.
What recently happened with Naked Cyclists and those Kids should be a wake up call at what their trying to do with the kids of Today Greta Thunberg and David Hogg are the examples of the brainwashing going on in the Government/NEA Run Schools
Get help. And get off the strong drugs.
I think he snorts his own farts. All that toxic methane must’ve caused brain damage.
Nonsense. Iran would readily use nuclear weapons against Israel, even if the consequences were devastating to Iran itself, because the Mullahs believe that a nuclear war would summon their Mahdi – the Twelfth Imam – out of occultation and trigger the End Times, which is what they want.
And it scared Lil’ Kim straight. President Trump is the only President or US official to ever meet with any of the Kims and Lil’ Kim LIKES him. Job well done.
As soon as the Alzheimer Joe administration tried to talk to him he promptly launched a missile. A foreign affairs failure, as ALL dealings between this administration and foreign powers are.
Face it, President Trump got the jobs done while this administration is incompetent on top of being criminal.
Butala is correct. Get over yourself and seek professional help. I have noticed you really don’t comment on anything and your syntax is terrible.
A note: I have no love for the Roman Catholic Church. That said, I will readily admit that as the Roman Empire dissolved into the Dark Ages, it was the RC, despite its ills and idiocy, that held humanity and the remnants of society together. The Church helped us get to the Middle Ages. Without the Popes and pampered clergy (and yes, even the Inquisition) humanity would have looked (and acted) like they do in modern day Chicago. Woke-ism is ultimately doomed. As with most Leftists nightmares, this cultural psychosis will start to devour itself in a few years. Bear in mind, that about 90% of the world’s population have begun to sever their dependence on the West and its Globalist wet dream. Amerika and Europe will become third world beggars. In order to pay back the money we’ve borrowed, China will eventually get Hawaii and California; Russia will gladly take back Alaska. You can thank both Republicans AND Democrats for that. Have a great day fellow Serfs.
Roman Catholic Irish Monks did the most to preserve books and knowledge. We owe them a debt of gratitude.
The vast majority of Americans hate the woke movement and will eventually stamp it out. No social movement so perverse, divisive, destructive and supremacist can last. And no way can the Chicoms take Hawaii and especially not California.
A history professor at the local college complained to me that when she handed back the first exam in a course, a student who failed the exam said to her after class “wow. You really don’t like black people, do you?” The professor told me what she wanted to say to the student, but instead said nothing to defend herself against the false accusation.
That there is debate about men playing on women’s teams might seem to validate the thesis the tide might be turning, but from my perspective it seems like the tide is instead still going out but only at a slightly lower rate. When a SCOTUS nominee, a black woman who was chosen because she is a black woman cannot tell us what a woman is, we get evidence fact is stranger than fiction. It is increasingly difficult to find a discipline that is not labeled as suffering from “systemic racism.” Correct “2+2 =5” and you’re guilty of racism.
VDH should have said that the US is in the midst of a slow rolling COMMUNIST revolution.
But he’s always been a little slow on the uptake.
Claiming that VDH is slow on the uptake only proves that you’re stupid. And none of the people who claim to be communists really are. Not a single one of them is willing to share their wealth and property. They’re all frauds. The Dirtbagocrats use many oppressive commie tactics but they don’t practice communism and never will. Our retarded youth think socialism and communism means free stuff but of course, they’re wrong and have no idea what either psuedo philosophy really entails. None of them want to share their wealth and property either, and if the state took complete control they’d change their minds about socialism faster than you can say “gulag” or “death camp.”