If you view these issues through a purely ideological lens, I can see why you’d think that trans ideology will triumph over racial identitarianism, but I think in practice racialism is far more powerful. Obsession over black people as an object of moral concern and ideas of human universalism are deeply ingrained in American history since the time of the founding, and the more radical abolitionists were invariably Protestant religious fanatics. This has obviously continued into the present as pretty much everyone here has seen all the bizarre atonement rituals white liberals did after George Floyd including washing the feet of random black people and practically building shrines to the man.
Furthermore, from a simple material standpoint blacks (and other racial minorities to a lesser extent) are far more valuable as a part of a political patronage system than transsexuals; there are orders of magnitude more of them, they have much more established political networks, and are a rock solid vote farm for democrats. Plus, as outsized recipients of countless welfare programs, they generate tons of valuable makework gigs for bureaucrats and the managerial class as a whole as they fruitlessly try to close various “wealth/health/achievement/employment” gaps. The couple billion made off of trans medical expenses is nothing compared to the many trillions spent over the decades on “uplift” for black people and other lower functioning racial minorities.
Very well put. Blacks are indeed the preferred weapon. It's hard to talk about it all without coming across as a "hater" and all the rest but you've done a great job.
Our host mentioned that liberalism is in the process of destroying itself. I totally agree with this. On a personal level one should try to get out of the way. One way is to act within a more aristocratic frame of mind such as privilege, obligation, honor, custom and divine order, rather than democratic "rights" which have led to the present insanity (I think). I'd point out that custom also includes and contains insanity. Please read Euripides Bacchae. It does a pretty good job describing our world and it's tragic ending.
I think “Liberalism” could still thrive well into the future, but this would have to involve divorcing it from concepts like universalism, egalitarianism, and mass democracy. It would require admitting that Liberalism is a creation of, and really only suited for, 115+ IQ socially conscientious western euros, and falls apart when applied anywhere else.
I think one of the defining deep elements of European (especially Western European) culture is the idea of innate greatness not necessarily being tied to formal social class. Even plebeians of Ancient Rome could achieve some of the highest possible honors for military valor and be recognized as truly excellent, and aristocracy felt the need to justify itself through demonstrating superior intellect, martial courage, and physical prowess compared to the masses to justify their status; compare this to the bloated and effete oriental despots with their gigantic harems, and the relentless obsession with marrying for money in many of these cultures. It’s ironic, but the western bias towards honoring innate individual superiority tends to create more egalitarian social norms.
This is correct. European culture is (was?) unique. The rest of the world (ROW) is where you have the top 5% owning everything with virtually no upward mobility. There is no "middle class." Just everybody else. Look for public golf courses outside of the west. You won't find any. Actually, there might be some in Japan and maybe South Korea, but they are the exception that proves the rule.
“I think “Liberalism” could still thrive well into the future, but this would have to involve divorcing it from concepts like universalism, egalitarianism, and mass democracy.”
In other words; make liberalism non-liberal. Liberalism is nothing if not messianic and expansive. Both in terms of territorial control and in ideology. Liberty and freedom to the liberal are limitless so much so, the heavy hand of the State must ensure each expands.
I don’t see democracy as liberal as much as I see democracy the veneer liberalism uses to gain legitimacy for itself.
No one has a hope of comprehending these issues without first admitting that "obsession over black people" didn't exactly begin with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and that any perceived "value" of African Americans as a political patronage constituency--as might be perceived by cynical observers, particularly ambitious politicians or self-dealers--was preceded by decades of their nearly complete disenfranchisement in most of the American South. That exclusion partook of its own peculiar form of cynical political patronage and pandering: in the decades between the mid-1870s and the mid-1960s, the American South was ruled exclusively by people of unmixed white ancestry--and, more often than not, for the exclusive benefit of the white population.
Leaving that part out is dishonest.
Furthermore, the worst examples of grifting and demagoguery by black American politicians are handily outdone in the annals of American history by the sleazy demagoguery of white politicians pandering with narratives of white supremacy.
It's also dishonest to leave out the legacy impacts of that officially imposed regime of exclusion on "black people and other lower functioning racial minorities." After all, if black Americans were so inherently incapable of high functioning and scholastic achievement, then why were they officially banned from admission to colleges, universities, and medical schools for so many decades? Why was literacy forbidden the the enslaved population of the American South? In the late 19th century, the literacy rate of black Americans in the southern states was estimated by the census to be 4%. And why the hell wouldn't it be? Centuries of chattel slavery in the US had left that population not only landless and destitute at the outset of the Emancipation era; almost all of the emancipated were illiterate--in any language, not just English--and innumerate. Not exactly the sort of situation conducive to "model minority" upward mobility, in marked contrast to the European and Asian immigrant experience in the US.
Excellent debate. Just on the basis of this debate, I would say that woke started as individualist and is now collectivist, which is the problem. You both drop the racial component of woke pretty quickly, even though I still think it's the biggest aspect of woke. It's just been around for longer so it's been upstaged by the trans movement. And here I think it's instructive to compare it with the gay rights movement. In the beginning they were in identical conditions, despised and illegal. Over time, however homosexuality became widely accepted, and I think trans would have as well. And at this stage both are still individualistic. Gays asked for and received marriage rights, with carve outs for churches who don't accept them. And then they mostly went away. Trans on the other hand went through a very small and fast acceptance stage, where the few genuine trans spoke with their doctors and families, and transitioned, and would have preferred to be done and not draw attention. I don't think people would have cared about that either. But relatively early on it moved to collectivism, providing the solidarity and community that used to be provided by church etc as mentioned above. And this grew its ranks exponentially as more people thought of it as a club rather than an intensely personal decision. And from there they began to clamor for all kinds of intrusive collectivist issues like the pronouns, sports, locker rooms etc. Whatever could be most annoying, they went for it. And this is the ultimate collectivist strategy, making everyone bend to their wishes. I think Blacks are also following the same strategy. It's also why I think you see gays, Asians and Latinos backing away from wokeism, because they've done pretty well without annoying the hell out of everybody else. So I guess this is a longwinded compromise position to the above.
arrow 63 states that "...once gays received marriage rights...they mostly went away." I must be living in an alternate universe. It was gays receiving marriage rights in Obergefell in 2015 that radically altered the multi-millennia held definition of marriage across all cultures as between a man and a woman. As long predicted by stalwart defenders of traditional marriage, gay activists were not going to "live and let live" once they reached that goal, but would continue to press not only for acceptance, but for total submission to their agenda or you are branded a homophobic bigot. Gay rights are an orthodoxy now, and error has no rights. Gay activism has grown from a spring fed by five justices into a torrent that has swept into every corner and crevice of society--academia, media, Hollywood, sports, Big Tech, Wall Street and kindergarten through grade 12.
Just as N.S. Lyons describes liberalism devouring its own in this debate, the trans movement is devouring feminism and usurping gay rights for its own agenda. Having some personal experience of the trans movement as a volunteer high school coach in the early to mid-2010s--before Obergefell and Jordan Peterson and Lia Thomas--the trans movement was anything but "personal." An athlete transitioning and her/his family had us all--athletes, coaches, teachers, etc.-- jumping through hoops keeping up with name changes and pronouns.
I think you both miss the point. I see this “deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal” going hand in hand with the divide between "the two big camps of Race and Trans". The social goal is power, and the "camps" of division become more numerous every day. It is the essence of divide and conquer, and the end game of identity politics. Regardless of the divide- old/young, rich/poor, Christian/Muslim/, deplorable/elite, gay/straight, and regardless of the stated "social goal"- equity, climate, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, or whatever, this is power struggle. It is a contest among various arrogant self appointed aristocrats who view themselves as the rightful rulers of their lesser humanity. They may differ (with some overlap) in who they ally with, which cause they support, and which group of useful idiots support them, but the end game is the same. Those in power wish to keep it, and will use any cause, any excuse, to do so. Those with less power wish to supplant those above them, and are perhaps even more ruthless. They happily eat their own, and the Robespierre Effect holds sway. The old enlightenment ideals are scorned, ignored, or subverted. Lawfare is now an openly acknowledged and accepted tool of governance. These modern day Brahmins sort and cull their wolf pack, and invite the sheep to participate. Their collectivization is that of predator and prey. It isn't about red versus blue or Hamas versus Jew, the real division is between those who wish to rule others, and those with no such wish. I cringe every time I hear "there ought to be a law".
Personally, I doubt we can vote, discuss, or reason our way out of this as a first resort. The fanatics aren't willing... yet.
You're describing the 3rd world, probably Brazil. We're not quite there yet and I don't think it'll come to that. Way too many white people. Once the vibrancy begins to affect their property values, children (especially schools), and personal safety and health the white progressive will start voting for, say, a return to freedom of association and an end to quotas. It's already happening in super liberal Washington DC: https://dcist.com/story/23/08/08/dc-homeless-shelter-gw-dorm/
You have more faith in the process than I do. For decades I have watched the red/blue faithful pull the lever for "their side" no matter what. COVID, lockdowns, lawfare, suppression of rights, rampant inflation, 1 trillion debt payments, and we still have 90% + re-election rates for incumbents... no matter what lies are told or insanity committed. Now things have reached a point where there is nothing the deep state will not do to maintain power. We are currently in the ninth year of an ongoing coup attempt against DJT, and it ain't over yet.
I expect nothing good, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best... and keep my head down.
"this is power struggle" Yes. Put one person in isolation, and they go crazy. Put two people together, and they begin scheming to see who will be on top. The human drive for ascendancy (transcendence?) is inseparable from human nature, and often the dominating force. The ties of family (and to a lesser extent religion) temper this drive with compassion and empathy. We have lost our values and culture. We're feeling lost. When that happens, we strive even harder for control and power. We hold tighter. The pyramid of victimology (whether collectivist or individualist) is simply a tool to use in our desperate scramble up the pyramid as the meaning in our lives dissolves.
Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by N.S. Lyons
To list 'radical environmentalism' as one of 'two pillars' of something called 'Woke' is both ignorant and sloppy.
Firstly, what is 'radical' environmentalism, as opposed to, say, the 'mainstream' variety'? The examples quoted here - carbon reductions and the Green New Deal, for example - are not 'radical' at all; they are mainstream policies, pursued by governments and corporations. No green worth his salt would call this stuff 'radical.'
Secondly, environmentalism in its current mainstream form may have a leftist flavour, but this is because the left has colonised the movement, as it does all movements, and bent it to its end. Consider the notion of 'climate justice' as an example. What do (usually leftist) notions of human 'justice' have to do with preventing the climate from destabilising? Nothing at all. Wanting a stable climate is in everyones' interests. That the left has claimed it as their own cause, and the right has then reacted against it because it is 'woke' is neither here nor there.
Finally, environmentalism as a movement can be traced back at least to the 1950s, and if you include in that definition the much older conservation movement, then it has roots in the 19th century. Perhaps the quinetessential American environmentalist was Teddy Roosevelt, a man not known for his wokeness. In fact, the early green movement was small-c conservative. Pick a few of its best known names - Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold, E. F. Schumacher, Edward Goldsmith - and you'll find yourself amongst traditionalists. As Scruton explained in great detail, protecting nature is ultimately conservative, by definition.
The left's colonisation of environmentalism ought to be resisted, not accepted. There is nothing 'woke' about not destroying creation.
the "woke" have managed to extract climate change from the broader issues of the environmental movement to use as a cudgel to beat their opponents with and to use as leverage for more power. protecting nature is 100% a conservative goal in the original sense. one has only to look at the inane statements of the woke regard climate (just stop oil, free Palestine is climate justice etc). in other words, they aren't serious about these goals.
ironically, divorcing climate change from the environmental movement might have been the worst thing to happen to it. apocalyptic narratives can justify almost any actions, regardless of the stakes. for example, most woke types will openly admit that climate change is magnitudes worse than nuclear war...think about that...
I find this exchange fascinating as a recovering libertarian.
Lyons put it best: would an assertion of radical individualism save us from the woke? Of course not.
What Charles is missing is that even his supposedly neutral, liberal anchors for society are really just normative assertions. There's no way he can prove that freedom of speech is best without resorting to some form Judeo-Christian "natural law", which is no different than a Muslim resorting to Shariah law to justify his prohibition of blasphemy. I expect that Charles sees these are different, but he's incorrect about that.
John Locke's value-neutral state, which Charles invokes without ever stating the name, is an illusion. There has never been and can never be a stable, value-neutral state. As tribal creatures, humans seek some form of shared culture or ideology or religion, and "my rights only end at your nose" is too weak a proposition around which to organize a nation.
In the end, I don't care what philosophical category wokeness is in. I just want to know how to kill it.
It seems obvious that collectivistic and individualistic elements are part of the composition of almost all humans, so that the notion of a totalizing collectivistic or individualistic philosophy or ideology is an absurdity in conflict with what I'll fondly call "nature". If we insisted on assigning identitarian "Woke" to one of these two absurdities, I suppose it would have to be the collectivistic side, but as race (the favorite) is itself a fallacious absurdity which will someday blow away in the winds of some other absurdity I don't see the point of analyzing it deeply.
Environmentalism is quite different -- it is a (usually selfish) concern for one's personal survival and well-being. That it has become politicized and fashionable is unfortunate, but that's the way we do things.
I do thank you for giving me some idea what people are talking about when they say "Woke" even though it's pretty stupid.
I would say you both are trying to fit Woke into a framework which doesn't contain it, at all. You are both, however, touching upon the key and core concepts - it is religious and that is the reason why it even "works". It fills the religious void in many Westerners with similar concepts and utopias, with soul-analogues (inner true self) and chosen people (the oppressed). As such, it does not - as a concept - conform to either definition.
If anything, it is born out of the void, where faith resides in humans - which by itself is a void created in part by the Enlightenment, but also by both collectivist and individualist movements. Both of them will try to smother and kill the religious in its adherents - and from this smothering rises the void that needs to be filled. And nature abhors a vacuum, and something forms to fill it.
Religions can be both collectivist and individualist in how they organize themselves, and sometimes that leads to conflicts internally to the religion, sometimes they co-exist with the overarching religion acting as a "common unifier" that allows both paths to continue existing, allowing adherents to choose their path forward by joining one or the other.
...might be useful to consider the Eastern Yin Yang paradigm, chaos and order, and the current Yin ascendency having been driven by technology's release of nature's historical constraints on women. It's not that Yin seeks chaos, but it's what you get when compassion comes before justice, and compassion for an individual becomes the solution for the collective.
The world is not black & white and it is mistake to describe it in terms of a dichotomy. The Woke debate is not a matter of the individual vs the collective, it is a strategy being used to seize power. The issues of race, gay, trans, environment, abortion (which wasn’t mentioned in the debate),etc., while they may be legitimate issues to address, are being used as tools seize power from the “Oppressors,” who they have defined as straight white males (i.e. White Supremists, White Privilege, MAGA supporters, deplorable, racists, Nazis, etc.) Of course, the leaders of this movement to seize power are predominately straight white males who are willing to use any tool, including Woke, to secure their position in the hierarchy.
If we take an honest look at history, I think we will see that every ideology and religion has been used as tools to seize power. That’s not to say that we should not seek an ideology or religion that allows humans to flourish and protects individuals from the whims of the mob, but the point is that no matter how “perfect” that ideology or religion may be, there will always be people who attempt to find weakness in the ideology or religion that can be used/misused for their purpose - power!
The polities in which power is exercised are simply too big. There is no way that collective power can be restrained in something as big as the US (also the EU, Russia, China and apparently even something as small as the Netherlands). So I have become an ideological secessionist. This allows me to support both Ukrainian and Donbas independence. Also Catalonia, N. Italy, Flemish, Irish (of both types), the National Divorce here, separation of Shia and Sunni and so on. The process should continue until the polities are small enough and cohesive enough to allow social pressure to ameliorate gross misuse of power.
I think collectivist. The case can be made better by talking less about Hitler and Lenin/Stalin and more about Mussolini. The Nazis and Bolsheviks were fanatics in ways the the Italian fascists were not. Plus Mussolini was first. Well before Hitler who always regarded Mussolini as the founding father of fascism. Slightly before Lenin who did the NEP at about the same time as the March on Rome. Lenin did the NEP about as soon as he could after the ravages of civil war and war communism. I have a hard time distinguishing between Italian fascism and the NEP. Mussolini doesn't get the "credit" he deserves because he led Italy rather than Germany or the Soviet Union.
Since I know that someone will attack my statement about fanaticism, I will urge them in advance to consider the difference between the campus version of Woke and the corporate version. The corporate version is much more powerful and is simply seeking power and wealth in the way that German and Italian industrialists and the NEPmen did.
The right full word for trans is transitory. It was chosen for its capacity to outrage normal people now that radical feminism and gayness are mainstream. It will be replaced by something else. Several candidates are already visible on the horizon- pedophilia (MAP), incest, and furries. Why not let actual lions participate in MMA. After all, there is a precedent.
Wow!! Now we are getting somewhere in making some organizing sense of what is transpiring right before our very eyes. I am not looking to settle any perspective - collectivist v liberal, racial v trans - just yet. NS, you da best! Your article almost two years ago on the truckers and virtual v physicals put you on my radar. I so appreciate you for setting these organizing frames up and doing it by inviting a debate. Imagine that!
I want to submit a corrallary, or observation/insight regarding your calling of a winner. You choose trans to win over race, in part, because trans is a religion and race is a ploy for material gain. Material can be power, status too. I think you will be right.
Here's my part... Early in the pandemic I exclaimed for my wife, as I read everything, that the The Science was a final confirmation that religion as known for centuries was finally dead and we had a new belief system enshrined in abject acceptance of institution mediated conformity in the power of technological intervention. Everyone seemed to turn their bodies over. Willingly. Desparately. Traditional religion was dead and the new The Science took over. Coterminously, "trans activists" said, "I have an inner me and I can be whatever sex I want to be." Both are completely dependent on a massive, and I mean, massive drug juggernaut that enables. The individual in society now accepts that everything starts with putting pharmaceuticals in you. Before you have some surgery, you are on hormone drugs, etc. Any novel virus can only be dealt with by taking a novel drug therapy.
The ultimate surrender of sovereignty is facilitated by an acceptance that novel pharmaceutical "innovations" are cost and risk free and that the complex that profits from these therapies are our friends. Remember the video showing how the medical professionals at Vanderbilt were so excited by the revenue opportunities of sex changes?
Trans wins over race because it rides on the coattails of mass acceptance of the power of novel drug therapies. Only the US and New Zealand allow advertising by drug companies. The new sheriff is The Science. It will free me and I don't care if the vax did not prevent infection, transmission, hospitalization or myocarditas.
In order to determine the nature of something, once must determine BOTH its origin and its endpoint. For example, the nature of something mortal has as its origin and endpoint, birth and death. The endpoint here which the elites freely admit is complete liberation from the body, I.e to download one’s consciousness to a computer. While clearly hyper individual, it’s also something collectivist as only the elite would likely be allowed this false immortality.
In either case, a return to the underpinnings of Christianity would combat both these tendencies. At the most basic level, consciousness in Christianity has its origin in the spirit, nullifying any false promise of immortality in this world.
NS, you're falling into the same old trap of two-valued logic. Questions of ideology are almost never EITHER Collectivist OR Individualist, in terms of their real-world manifestations.
I mean, really: Josef Stalin- Individualist or Collectivist? Stalin was an autocratic Individualist, pursuing his own idiosyncratic vision of Statist Collectivism.
Consequently, the commercial fishermen drawing up the nets in the rivers of the USSR were forbidden to even keep any of their catch for their own personal consumption; the urban Masses of the large cities had first claim on that vital protein resource, and if someone stashed even one fish away for their own personal or household consumption, they were guilty of a criminal offense and could be sentenced to the gulag. (Unless you knew somebody, of course. And so it came to pass that the black market eventually constituted 25% of the Soviet economy.)
Meanwhile, was Joe Stalin, the Beloved Servant of the People, dining only on porridge and beets? Of course not. It was his selfless duty to dine at banquets, attended to by a staff of culinary professionals, including a personal food taster. And the foremost of Soviet Socialism was eliminating his rivals. Stalin even killed off most of the general staff of his military, while facing the imminent prospect of a foreign invasion.
I could draw an analogy to the excesses of Wokism from that example. But it would be scare hyperbole. Wokism is a feeble grift, in comparison. Enfeebled by its own contradictions.
Very enlightening interaction. I guess I fall on the collectivism side of the argument, most likely because I believe it is the most dangerous. Analogous to a pack of dogs, the pack mentality creates a whole new level of bravery not seen with the individual.
I certainly agree that to combat the epidemic it will take the return of Christian morality. Hopefully the sooner the better, I'm not sure we can just wait for them to eat their own.
I love this format. I could imagine as I read it of a person standing in the crowd at the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the nature of slavery. I have to agree that much of what we have seen in intellectual and academic critical theory comes from atomized people. The old comment that Freud thought man pursued pleasure, Adler that men pursued power but Fankyl thought it was meaning, fits well with the origins and execution of Woke of which Trans is but a sub set. People who espouse these ideas seek identity, power and status ( the last two might be the same thing) because they feel powerless in their lives. Because they are uneducated in the past they don't see or perhaps don't want to see that the end of their pursuit is slavery.
Woke and environmentalism are constantly shifting landscapes of revolutionary language and action. To avoid losing meaning, a person must be constantly on top of the latest evolution of language and action, they can never stop because to stop means loss of power and status. Each evolution must become more and extreme and perhaps violent to be relevant.
I hesitate to upvote this but you are correct. It is not just across the Left/Right divide either. Certainly, it is true within the Right. It seems to be so with the Left as well though the leftist websites are less likely to have comment sections. The wars have fractured consensus in both sectors.
If you view these issues through a purely ideological lens, I can see why you’d think that trans ideology will triumph over racial identitarianism, but I think in practice racialism is far more powerful. Obsession over black people as an object of moral concern and ideas of human universalism are deeply ingrained in American history since the time of the founding, and the more radical abolitionists were invariably Protestant religious fanatics. This has obviously continued into the present as pretty much everyone here has seen all the bizarre atonement rituals white liberals did after George Floyd including washing the feet of random black people and practically building shrines to the man.
Furthermore, from a simple material standpoint blacks (and other racial minorities to a lesser extent) are far more valuable as a part of a political patronage system than transsexuals; there are orders of magnitude more of them, they have much more established political networks, and are a rock solid vote farm for democrats. Plus, as outsized recipients of countless welfare programs, they generate tons of valuable makework gigs for bureaucrats and the managerial class as a whole as they fruitlessly try to close various “wealth/health/achievement/employment” gaps. The couple billion made off of trans medical expenses is nothing compared to the many trillions spent over the decades on “uplift” for black people and other lower functioning racial minorities.
Very well put. Blacks are indeed the preferred weapon. It's hard to talk about it all without coming across as a "hater" and all the rest but you've done a great job.
Our host mentioned that liberalism is in the process of destroying itself. I totally agree with this. On a personal level one should try to get out of the way. One way is to act within a more aristocratic frame of mind such as privilege, obligation, honor, custom and divine order, rather than democratic "rights" which have led to the present insanity (I think). I'd point out that custom also includes and contains insanity. Please read Euripides Bacchae. It does a pretty good job describing our world and it's tragic ending.
I think “Liberalism” could still thrive well into the future, but this would have to involve divorcing it from concepts like universalism, egalitarianism, and mass democracy. It would require admitting that Liberalism is a creation of, and really only suited for, 115+ IQ socially conscientious western euros, and falls apart when applied anywhere else.
I think one of the defining deep elements of European (especially Western European) culture is the idea of innate greatness not necessarily being tied to formal social class. Even plebeians of Ancient Rome could achieve some of the highest possible honors for military valor and be recognized as truly excellent, and aristocracy felt the need to justify itself through demonstrating superior intellect, martial courage, and physical prowess compared to the masses to justify their status; compare this to the bloated and effete oriental despots with their gigantic harems, and the relentless obsession with marrying for money in many of these cultures. It’s ironic, but the western bias towards honoring innate individual superiority tends to create more egalitarian social norms.
This is correct. European culture is (was?) unique. The rest of the world (ROW) is where you have the top 5% owning everything with virtually no upward mobility. There is no "middle class." Just everybody else. Look for public golf courses outside of the west. You won't find any. Actually, there might be some in Japan and maybe South Korea, but they are the exception that proves the rule.
Thailand has a public course or two (Hua Hin) but they cater to western tourists.
“I think “Liberalism” could still thrive well into the future, but this would have to involve divorcing it from concepts like universalism, egalitarianism, and mass democracy.”
In other words; make liberalism non-liberal. Liberalism is nothing if not messianic and expansive. Both in terms of territorial control and in ideology. Liberty and freedom to the liberal are limitless so much so, the heavy hand of the State must ensure each expands.
I don’t see democracy as liberal as much as I see democracy the veneer liberalism uses to gain legitimacy for itself.
No one has a hope of comprehending these issues without first admitting that "obsession over black people" didn't exactly begin with the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, and that any perceived "value" of African Americans as a political patronage constituency--as might be perceived by cynical observers, particularly ambitious politicians or self-dealers--was preceded by decades of their nearly complete disenfranchisement in most of the American South. That exclusion partook of its own peculiar form of cynical political patronage and pandering: in the decades between the mid-1870s and the mid-1960s, the American South was ruled exclusively by people of unmixed white ancestry--and, more often than not, for the exclusive benefit of the white population.
Leaving that part out is dishonest.
Furthermore, the worst examples of grifting and demagoguery by black American politicians are handily outdone in the annals of American history by the sleazy demagoguery of white politicians pandering with narratives of white supremacy.
It's also dishonest to leave out the legacy impacts of that officially imposed regime of exclusion on "black people and other lower functioning racial minorities." After all, if black Americans were so inherently incapable of high functioning and scholastic achievement, then why were they officially banned from admission to colleges, universities, and medical schools for so many decades? Why was literacy forbidden the the enslaved population of the American South? In the late 19th century, the literacy rate of black Americans in the southern states was estimated by the census to be 4%. And why the hell wouldn't it be? Centuries of chattel slavery in the US had left that population not only landless and destitute at the outset of the Emancipation era; almost all of the emancipated were illiterate--in any language, not just English--and innumerate. Not exactly the sort of situation conducive to "model minority" upward mobility, in marked contrast to the European and Asian immigrant experience in the US.
Excellent debate. Just on the basis of this debate, I would say that woke started as individualist and is now collectivist, which is the problem. You both drop the racial component of woke pretty quickly, even though I still think it's the biggest aspect of woke. It's just been around for longer so it's been upstaged by the trans movement. And here I think it's instructive to compare it with the gay rights movement. In the beginning they were in identical conditions, despised and illegal. Over time, however homosexuality became widely accepted, and I think trans would have as well. And at this stage both are still individualistic. Gays asked for and received marriage rights, with carve outs for churches who don't accept them. And then they mostly went away. Trans on the other hand went through a very small and fast acceptance stage, where the few genuine trans spoke with their doctors and families, and transitioned, and would have preferred to be done and not draw attention. I don't think people would have cared about that either. But relatively early on it moved to collectivism, providing the solidarity and community that used to be provided by church etc as mentioned above. And this grew its ranks exponentially as more people thought of it as a club rather than an intensely personal decision. And from there they began to clamor for all kinds of intrusive collectivist issues like the pronouns, sports, locker rooms etc. Whatever could be most annoying, they went for it. And this is the ultimate collectivist strategy, making everyone bend to their wishes. I think Blacks are also following the same strategy. It's also why I think you see gays, Asians and Latinos backing away from wokeism, because they've done pretty well without annoying the hell out of everybody else. So I guess this is a longwinded compromise position to the above.
arrow 63 states that "...once gays received marriage rights...they mostly went away." I must be living in an alternate universe. It was gays receiving marriage rights in Obergefell in 2015 that radically altered the multi-millennia held definition of marriage across all cultures as between a man and a woman. As long predicted by stalwart defenders of traditional marriage, gay activists were not going to "live and let live" once they reached that goal, but would continue to press not only for acceptance, but for total submission to their agenda or you are branded a homophobic bigot. Gay rights are an orthodoxy now, and error has no rights. Gay activism has grown from a spring fed by five justices into a torrent that has swept into every corner and crevice of society--academia, media, Hollywood, sports, Big Tech, Wall Street and kindergarten through grade 12.
Just as N.S. Lyons describes liberalism devouring its own in this debate, the trans movement is devouring feminism and usurping gay rights for its own agenda. Having some personal experience of the trans movement as a volunteer high school coach in the early to mid-2010s--before Obergefell and Jordan Peterson and Lia Thomas--the trans movement was anything but "personal." An athlete transitioning and her/his family had us all--athletes, coaches, teachers, etc.-- jumping through hoops keeping up with name changes and pronouns.
Agreed. While the specifics of the alliance between the alphabetic constituencies of LGBT* was mostly undefined, it was nevertheless an alliance.
I think you both miss the point. I see this “deliberate organization of the labors of society for a definite social goal” going hand in hand with the divide between "the two big camps of Race and Trans". The social goal is power, and the "camps" of division become more numerous every day. It is the essence of divide and conquer, and the end game of identity politics. Regardless of the divide- old/young, rich/poor, Christian/Muslim/, deplorable/elite, gay/straight, and regardless of the stated "social goal"- equity, climate, anti-racism, anti-colonialism, or whatever, this is power struggle. It is a contest among various arrogant self appointed aristocrats who view themselves as the rightful rulers of their lesser humanity. They may differ (with some overlap) in who they ally with, which cause they support, and which group of useful idiots support them, but the end game is the same. Those in power wish to keep it, and will use any cause, any excuse, to do so. Those with less power wish to supplant those above them, and are perhaps even more ruthless. They happily eat their own, and the Robespierre Effect holds sway. The old enlightenment ideals are scorned, ignored, or subverted. Lawfare is now an openly acknowledged and accepted tool of governance. These modern day Brahmins sort and cull their wolf pack, and invite the sheep to participate. Their collectivization is that of predator and prey. It isn't about red versus blue or Hamas versus Jew, the real division is between those who wish to rule others, and those with no such wish. I cringe every time I hear "there ought to be a law".
Personally, I doubt we can vote, discuss, or reason our way out of this as a first resort. The fanatics aren't willing... yet.
You're describing the 3rd world, probably Brazil. We're not quite there yet and I don't think it'll come to that. Way too many white people. Once the vibrancy begins to affect their property values, children (especially schools), and personal safety and health the white progressive will start voting for, say, a return to freedom of association and an end to quotas. It's already happening in super liberal Washington DC: https://dcist.com/story/23/08/08/dc-homeless-shelter-gw-dorm/
They just do it with more finesse than MAGA.
You have more faith in the process than I do. For decades I have watched the red/blue faithful pull the lever for "their side" no matter what. COVID, lockdowns, lawfare, suppression of rights, rampant inflation, 1 trillion debt payments, and we still have 90% + re-election rates for incumbents... no matter what lies are told or insanity committed. Now things have reached a point where there is nothing the deep state will not do to maintain power. We are currently in the ninth year of an ongoing coup attempt against DJT, and it ain't over yet.
I expect nothing good, prepare for the worst, and hope for the best... and keep my head down.
"this is power struggle" Yes. Put one person in isolation, and they go crazy. Put two people together, and they begin scheming to see who will be on top. The human drive for ascendancy (transcendence?) is inseparable from human nature, and often the dominating force. The ties of family (and to a lesser extent religion) temper this drive with compassion and empathy. We have lost our values and culture. We're feeling lost. When that happens, we strive even harder for control and power. We hold tighter. The pyramid of victimology (whether collectivist or individualist) is simply a tool to use in our desperate scramble up the pyramid as the meaning in our lives dissolves.
To list 'radical environmentalism' as one of 'two pillars' of something called 'Woke' is both ignorant and sloppy.
Firstly, what is 'radical' environmentalism, as opposed to, say, the 'mainstream' variety'? The examples quoted here - carbon reductions and the Green New Deal, for example - are not 'radical' at all; they are mainstream policies, pursued by governments and corporations. No green worth his salt would call this stuff 'radical.'
Secondly, environmentalism in its current mainstream form may have a leftist flavour, but this is because the left has colonised the movement, as it does all movements, and bent it to its end. Consider the notion of 'climate justice' as an example. What do (usually leftist) notions of human 'justice' have to do with preventing the climate from destabilising? Nothing at all. Wanting a stable climate is in everyones' interests. That the left has claimed it as their own cause, and the right has then reacted against it because it is 'woke' is neither here nor there.
Finally, environmentalism as a movement can be traced back at least to the 1950s, and if you include in that definition the much older conservation movement, then it has roots in the 19th century. Perhaps the quinetessential American environmentalist was Teddy Roosevelt, a man not known for his wokeness. In fact, the early green movement was small-c conservative. Pick a few of its best known names - Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold, E. F. Schumacher, Edward Goldsmith - and you'll find yourself amongst traditionalists. As Scruton explained in great detail, protecting nature is ultimately conservative, by definition.
The left's colonisation of environmentalism ought to be resisted, not accepted. There is nothing 'woke' about not destroying creation.
I agree with Paul here.
the "woke" have managed to extract climate change from the broader issues of the environmental movement to use as a cudgel to beat their opponents with and to use as leverage for more power. protecting nature is 100% a conservative goal in the original sense. one has only to look at the inane statements of the woke regard climate (just stop oil, free Palestine is climate justice etc). in other words, they aren't serious about these goals.
ironically, divorcing climate change from the environmental movement might have been the worst thing to happen to it. apocalyptic narratives can justify almost any actions, regardless of the stakes. for example, most woke types will openly admit that climate change is magnitudes worse than nuclear war...think about that...
I find this exchange fascinating as a recovering libertarian.
Lyons put it best: would an assertion of radical individualism save us from the woke? Of course not.
What Charles is missing is that even his supposedly neutral, liberal anchors for society are really just normative assertions. There's no way he can prove that freedom of speech is best without resorting to some form Judeo-Christian "natural law", which is no different than a Muslim resorting to Shariah law to justify his prohibition of blasphemy. I expect that Charles sees these are different, but he's incorrect about that.
John Locke's value-neutral state, which Charles invokes without ever stating the name, is an illusion. There has never been and can never be a stable, value-neutral state. As tribal creatures, humans seek some form of shared culture or ideology or religion, and "my rights only end at your nose" is too weak a proposition around which to organize a nation.
In the end, I don't care what philosophical category wokeness is in. I just want to know how to kill it.
Collectivist or Individualist? It’s both! The Woke are very good at cognitive dissonance.
It seems obvious that collectivistic and individualistic elements are part of the composition of almost all humans, so that the notion of a totalizing collectivistic or individualistic philosophy or ideology is an absurdity in conflict with what I'll fondly call "nature". If we insisted on assigning identitarian "Woke" to one of these two absurdities, I suppose it would have to be the collectivistic side, but as race (the favorite) is itself a fallacious absurdity which will someday blow away in the winds of some other absurdity I don't see the point of analyzing it deeply.
Environmentalism is quite different -- it is a (usually selfish) concern for one's personal survival and well-being. That it has become politicized and fashionable is unfortunate, but that's the way we do things.
I do thank you for giving me some idea what people are talking about when they say "Woke" even though it's pretty stupid.
I would say you both are trying to fit Woke into a framework which doesn't contain it, at all. You are both, however, touching upon the key and core concepts - it is religious and that is the reason why it even "works". It fills the religious void in many Westerners with similar concepts and utopias, with soul-analogues (inner true self) and chosen people (the oppressed). As such, it does not - as a concept - conform to either definition.
If anything, it is born out of the void, where faith resides in humans - which by itself is a void created in part by the Enlightenment, but also by both collectivist and individualist movements. Both of them will try to smother and kill the religious in its adherents - and from this smothering rises the void that needs to be filled. And nature abhors a vacuum, and something forms to fill it.
Religions can be both collectivist and individualist in how they organize themselves, and sometimes that leads to conflicts internally to the religion, sometimes they co-exist with the overarching religion acting as a "common unifier" that allows both paths to continue existing, allowing adherents to choose their path forward by joining one or the other.
...might be useful to consider the Eastern Yin Yang paradigm, chaos and order, and the current Yin ascendency having been driven by technology's release of nature's historical constraints on women. It's not that Yin seeks chaos, but it's what you get when compassion comes before justice, and compassion for an individual becomes the solution for the collective.
The world is not black & white and it is mistake to describe it in terms of a dichotomy. The Woke debate is not a matter of the individual vs the collective, it is a strategy being used to seize power. The issues of race, gay, trans, environment, abortion (which wasn’t mentioned in the debate),etc., while they may be legitimate issues to address, are being used as tools seize power from the “Oppressors,” who they have defined as straight white males (i.e. White Supremists, White Privilege, MAGA supporters, deplorable, racists, Nazis, etc.) Of course, the leaders of this movement to seize power are predominately straight white males who are willing to use any tool, including Woke, to secure their position in the hierarchy.
If we take an honest look at history, I think we will see that every ideology and religion has been used as tools to seize power. That’s not to say that we should not seek an ideology or religion that allows humans to flourish and protects individuals from the whims of the mob, but the point is that no matter how “perfect” that ideology or religion may be, there will always be people who attempt to find weakness in the ideology or religion that can be used/misused for their purpose - power!
So, the debate should be, how do we stop it!
Why, clearly you stop the competition for power by seizing power. That'll do it -- if you seize enough power, that is.
The polities in which power is exercised are simply too big. There is no way that collective power can be restrained in something as big as the US (also the EU, Russia, China and apparently even something as small as the Netherlands). So I have become an ideological secessionist. This allows me to support both Ukrainian and Donbas independence. Also Catalonia, N. Italy, Flemish, Irish (of both types), the National Divorce here, separation of Shia and Sunni and so on. The process should continue until the polities are small enough and cohesive enough to allow social pressure to ameliorate gross misuse of power.
I think collectivist. The case can be made better by talking less about Hitler and Lenin/Stalin and more about Mussolini. The Nazis and Bolsheviks were fanatics in ways the the Italian fascists were not. Plus Mussolini was first. Well before Hitler who always regarded Mussolini as the founding father of fascism. Slightly before Lenin who did the NEP at about the same time as the March on Rome. Lenin did the NEP about as soon as he could after the ravages of civil war and war communism. I have a hard time distinguishing between Italian fascism and the NEP. Mussolini doesn't get the "credit" he deserves because he led Italy rather than Germany or the Soviet Union.
Since I know that someone will attack my statement about fanaticism, I will urge them in advance to consider the difference between the campus version of Woke and the corporate version. The corporate version is much more powerful and is simply seeking power and wealth in the way that German and Italian industrialists and the NEPmen did.
The right full word for trans is transitory. It was chosen for its capacity to outrage normal people now that radical feminism and gayness are mainstream. It will be replaced by something else. Several candidates are already visible on the horizon- pedophilia (MAP), incest, and furries. Why not let actual lions participate in MMA. After all, there is a precedent.
Wow!! Now we are getting somewhere in making some organizing sense of what is transpiring right before our very eyes. I am not looking to settle any perspective - collectivist v liberal, racial v trans - just yet. NS, you da best! Your article almost two years ago on the truckers and virtual v physicals put you on my radar. I so appreciate you for setting these organizing frames up and doing it by inviting a debate. Imagine that!
I want to submit a corrallary, or observation/insight regarding your calling of a winner. You choose trans to win over race, in part, because trans is a religion and race is a ploy for material gain. Material can be power, status too. I think you will be right.
Here's my part... Early in the pandemic I exclaimed for my wife, as I read everything, that the The Science was a final confirmation that religion as known for centuries was finally dead and we had a new belief system enshrined in abject acceptance of institution mediated conformity in the power of technological intervention. Everyone seemed to turn their bodies over. Willingly. Desparately. Traditional religion was dead and the new The Science took over. Coterminously, "trans activists" said, "I have an inner me and I can be whatever sex I want to be." Both are completely dependent on a massive, and I mean, massive drug juggernaut that enables. The individual in society now accepts that everything starts with putting pharmaceuticals in you. Before you have some surgery, you are on hormone drugs, etc. Any novel virus can only be dealt with by taking a novel drug therapy.
The ultimate surrender of sovereignty is facilitated by an acceptance that novel pharmaceutical "innovations" are cost and risk free and that the complex that profits from these therapies are our friends. Remember the video showing how the medical professionals at Vanderbilt were so excited by the revenue opportunities of sex changes?
Trans wins over race because it rides on the coattails of mass acceptance of the power of novel drug therapies. Only the US and New Zealand allow advertising by drug companies. The new sheriff is The Science. It will free me and I don't care if the vax did not prevent infection, transmission, hospitalization or myocarditas.
Thanks for all you do, N S!
In order to determine the nature of something, once must determine BOTH its origin and its endpoint. For example, the nature of something mortal has as its origin and endpoint, birth and death. The endpoint here which the elites freely admit is complete liberation from the body, I.e to download one’s consciousness to a computer. While clearly hyper individual, it’s also something collectivist as only the elite would likely be allowed this false immortality.
In either case, a return to the underpinnings of Christianity would combat both these tendencies. At the most basic level, consciousness in Christianity has its origin in the spirit, nullifying any false promise of immortality in this world.
NS, you're falling into the same old trap of two-valued logic. Questions of ideology are almost never EITHER Collectivist OR Individualist, in terms of their real-world manifestations.
I mean, really: Josef Stalin- Individualist or Collectivist? Stalin was an autocratic Individualist, pursuing his own idiosyncratic vision of Statist Collectivism.
Consequently, the commercial fishermen drawing up the nets in the rivers of the USSR were forbidden to even keep any of their catch for their own personal consumption; the urban Masses of the large cities had first claim on that vital protein resource, and if someone stashed even one fish away for their own personal or household consumption, they were guilty of a criminal offense and could be sentenced to the gulag. (Unless you knew somebody, of course. And so it came to pass that the black market eventually constituted 25% of the Soviet economy.)
Meanwhile, was Joe Stalin, the Beloved Servant of the People, dining only on porridge and beets? Of course not. It was his selfless duty to dine at banquets, attended to by a staff of culinary professionals, including a personal food taster. And the foremost of Soviet Socialism was eliminating his rivals. Stalin even killed off most of the general staff of his military, while facing the imminent prospect of a foreign invasion.
I could draw an analogy to the excesses of Wokism from that example. But it would be scare hyperbole. Wokism is a feeble grift, in comparison. Enfeebled by its own contradictions.
Very enlightening interaction. I guess I fall on the collectivism side of the argument, most likely because I believe it is the most dangerous. Analogous to a pack of dogs, the pack mentality creates a whole new level of bravery not seen with the individual.
I certainly agree that to combat the epidemic it will take the return of Christian morality. Hopefully the sooner the better, I'm not sure we can just wait for them to eat their own.
I love this format. I could imagine as I read it of a person standing in the crowd at the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the nature of slavery. I have to agree that much of what we have seen in intellectual and academic critical theory comes from atomized people. The old comment that Freud thought man pursued pleasure, Adler that men pursued power but Fankyl thought it was meaning, fits well with the origins and execution of Woke of which Trans is but a sub set. People who espouse these ideas seek identity, power and status ( the last two might be the same thing) because they feel powerless in their lives. Because they are uneducated in the past they don't see or perhaps don't want to see that the end of their pursuit is slavery.
Woke and environmentalism are constantly shifting landscapes of revolutionary language and action. To avoid losing meaning, a person must be constantly on top of the latest evolution of language and action, they can never stop because to stop means loss of power and status. Each evolution must become more and extreme and perhaps violent to be relevant.
Wait..... When are you going to start insultimg each other? I thought that's what online debate was all about :)
I hesitate to upvote this but you are correct. It is not just across the Left/Right divide either. Certainly, it is true within the Right. It seems to be so with the Left as well though the leftist websites are less likely to have comment sections. The wars have fractured consensus in both sectors.