I plead guilty!
Over time a fair number of commenters have, er, remarked on my optimisim—some in a positive way, others disparagingly. I admit that I make an effort to be project optimism. Without optimism there’s no reason to engage in a struggle.
Today, in response to my quoting Roger Kimball’s optimistic projection that Americans would rise against Wokedom, a reader sent me an OTOH link. It’s to a substack that basically argues, well, here’s the idea in the author’s own words:
I want to use my mandatory annual forecast to dump a few gallons of cold, contrarian water on what seems to have recently become a fashionable prediction: that the “woke” ideological revolution roiling the West has peaked and will soon be in full blown retreat.
I don’t actually think that, but I was intrigued and read the whole article—and I liked it!
None of the fundamental drivers of “Wokeness” have relented
Now, the author provides 20 “twenty reasons to get woke and despair.”
I refuse to despair. I also refuse to provide all twenty reasons. But that’s OK, because the first six reasons are very much in the vein that I openly espouse—especially in my antipathy for classical liberalism, aka libertarianism. And that’s what the first six reasons for why America will remain mired in Wokedom amount to—America’s basically libertarian mentality has been a strength but its lack of philosophical foundations have led us down the path of secularism to the Woke mud wallow our culture has descended into.
Here is a summary of those first six—out of twenty—reasons for why turning America around, making America great again, will be the work of generations:
1. One does not simply walk away from religious beliefs. What is called “Wokeness” – or the “Successor Ideology,” or the “New Faith,” or what have you … – rests on a series of what are ultimately metaphysical beliefs. The fact that their holders would laugh at the suggestion they have anything called metaphysical beliefs is irrelevant – they hold them nonetheless. …
The world is divided into a dualistic struggle between oppressed and oppressors …, all false authorities and boundaries must be torn down (deconstructed), and power redistributed from the oppressors to the oppressed; all injustice anywhere is interlinked (intersectional), so the battle against injustice is necessarily total; ultimate victory is cosmically ordained by history, though the arc of progress may be long; moral virtue and true right to rule is determined by collective status within the oppression-oppressed dialectic; morally neutral political liberalism is a lie constructed by the powerful to maintain status quo structures of oppression; the first step to liberation can be achieved through acquisition of the hidden knowledge of the truth of this dialectic; a select awoken vanguard must therefore guide a revolution in popular consciousness; all imposed limits on the individual can ultimately be transcended by virtue of a will to power…
I could go on, but the real point is that these are faith-beliefs, and ones capable of wielding an iron grip on the individual and collective mind. ... And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon, because…
2. The void of meaning still hasn’t been filled. I mean, did the gaping hole of meaning in people’s lives created by the uprooting forces of secular liquid modernity get resolved in some alternative way while we weren’t looking? You know, the spiritual void that this creepy chimeric faith-ideology and its romantic political crusades rushed to fill in the first place? Has there been some kind of genuine, organized religious revival? Has decadent nihilism stopped being the defining sentiment of the age? … No. And in fact, meanwhile, it also seems that…
3. Social atomization hasn’t reversed. It sure seems like the kind of robust communities, civic associations, and “little platoons” which once served to fortify society against the revolutionary (per Burke) and totalitarian (per Arendt) forces that thrive on atomization haven’t suddenly been rebuilt from the ground up. In fact even the most basic such unit, family formation, appears to be continuing to decline precipitously. And that may be because…
4. Atomization is probably the inevitable byproduct of liberal modernity. That is: liberalism made the autonomy of the individual its highest good. … Liberalism has thus acted as a centrifugal force, severing all the centripetal counter-forces that once kept individuals connected to recognizably human communities and launching them outward towards solitary orbits where they can drift cold and alone in their pods.
… And this hyper-individualism has now collided head first with the technological revolution, which increasingly positions itself as offering hope for the boundless potential necessary to escape from any natural limits whatsoever, including by fracturing any solid definition of what we once thought it meant to be human. And, speaking of technology and fracturing, meanwhile…
5. The information revolution is still reverberating. Ultimately, what’s more important in driving societal change: ideas, individuals, material conditions, or technological forces? That’s a fascinating question to debate, but for now all that matters is that it’s become manifestly clear that the ongoing revolution in information technology, most notably the internet and social media, has been a tremendous driver of cultural and political change. ... In part, we’ve already seen how its disintegrative effect has helped ensure that …
6. There is no authority. Who or what institution today is now able to establish any kind of common metaphysical framework, common moral narrative, common vision of a properly ordered life, common norms, or even a common reality that most of society will respect, trust, follow, and collectively defend? CNN? Ted Cruz? Yeah no, we can move on. But how then can this ideological upheaval quickly be put to rest, exactly?
And there are 14 more reasons, waiting for you at the link.
I personally find the author’s argument quite compelling as an analysis of why America seems defenseless against the Woke mob. The one caution I would add, however, is that predictions of this sort presuppose a sort of stasis. True, inertia is a powerful cultural force, but history has a way of disrupting what in the present appears to be the inalterable direction of the march of progress. Things just happen.
And so I say, Fight on, remain hopeful.
Allow me to posit my take on both your optimism, Mark, and the despair message of the linked article as i believe it reconciles both camps.
First, i believe we can be both optimistic and pessimistic about the US, our society, and our faith. In fact, I'd prefer to shun the idea of different camps of optimism vs pessimism and frame it simply as realism. Let's be brutally and unflinchingly honest about what we're facing and let the chips fall as they say.
This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that our society is in collapse and headed for very dire times indeed. I doubt any of us seriously doubt this. We can debate exactly how badly things will collapse and where, when, how precisely, but there's no doubt that the country that any of us over age...50 knew is going going and soon will be gone, for better or worse.
So, let's concede for sake of argument what Lyons says, all 20 points in fact (which do seem to me very astute readings of our *current* situation). Very grim picture indeed. But as Mark says, it's makes a fatal assumption that life in these United States will simply roll on as ever, along the same trajectory and parameters. We know this isn't the case.
So, I posit that things are far worse than Lyons points out (and to that extent I have been critical--- although i hope not excessively so or rude-- to Mark's optimism that 2022 or 2024 federal elections will matter). Things will not continue as Lyons assumes. They are already collapsing and will get far worse, rendering Lyons' fine analysis, ultimately, irrelevant.
But I am hopeful and optimistic that in our collapse and ruin and sufferings, on the other side, we will be reborn and our faith and values, too. All of the 20 cancers Lyons and others cite will be burned away by the Collapse(tm). Because reality-- the existential punch in the gut of not having food to eat, heat in your home (assuming you have a home), no job, no prospects, perhaps civil war, death, and destruction-- has a way of shaking loose all the illusions and deceptions we entertained in our luxurious past. People who survive the Collapse will be people of faith, people who forge tight communities that pool their resources and defend themselves.
To conclude, brace for impact. But not as people who have no hope. We have a faith in a personal God who cares and provides and expects us to act with the minds given to us in these times. Some of us may have to give up our lives so others can make it. That's reality. Each of us must choose the best location for us and our families and then dig in. Get Local. Have hope that through the fire is a new beginning better than we've ever known. But it's going to be brutal on the way. And, yeah, it won't be by voting.
Refreshing. I didn't read that post originally because I got a few lines in and thought, more childishness.