Great points. It is very tempting for people, rather than say "I was such an idiot. I sincerely hope I'm less of an idiot now" instead say "I was correct back then, but I see things have changed. I have always been right, it's the world that is wrong". (The worst example is Sam Harris https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/the-unravelling-of-sam-harris )
I worry that many of these folks who are now "anti-woke" don't see that the problem is authoritarianism and concentration of power. Rather than diffusing power to the individual as much as is possible, they see the answer as putting their OWN people (or themselves) in the power positions. RFK Jr. springs to mind: it's not OK to force people to get vaccines. It is OK to force people to follow climate dictat.
It seems to me that this is a perennial human failing that we can't correct, only mitigate by keeping the prow of our societal boat pointed in the direction of individual liberty.
I'm fairly conservative and moderately right-wing, have been viciously anti-woke from the beginning, and welcome prodigal refugees from the Dark Side. I think that conservatives have to make common cause with genuine liberals if we are to slay this beast which has usurped liberalism and subsumed our social institutions.
I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious finger wagging moral lecture and rap over the knuckles this essay administers to ideological naughty boys and girls who perversely never grow up, but still grow old.....
I had something of the same sensation after the thoroughly successful Australian campaign and 'plebiscite' in 2017 to sanction homosexual marriage, which I had vehemently opposed and been branded as a 'bigoted homophobe' for my trouble.
Less than a year later, many of my accusers found themselves being in their turn accused of being bigoted transphobes. And while the schadenfreude was exquisite, in these times, my enemy's enemy is my friend. The sobering fact is that it isn't just feminist activists who are the victims of The Tranzis.
I think dear Anonymous that you underestimate just how convulsive events are becoming to the point that all our old categories of political affiliation are more or less moribund. Talking about 'left' and 'right', 'conservative' and 'radical'' and 'traditionalist' and 'progressive' is 80-90% rear view mirrorism (apologies to Marshall McLuhan). They tell us very little about what is going on and only serve to muddy the waters.
Beneath the murky color and movement that passes these days for political discourse, is an unsustainable order, all of whose operating platforms are starting to chaotically buckle, whether social/existential or ecological.
The relatively (there was a cold war going on) sunny post WW2 and ongoing period of stability and prosperity that I was born into, grew up in and have aged through, are starting to swell and kink under the pressures generated not only inside its economic and cultural 'boilers' but the world order it created. The 'left' is no more culpable for this than anyone or anything else.
This is a system problem that is a result of very powerful accumulating forces that have built what we now have in front of us, over a 50-70 year period. Processes of change have been built around those forces by parties that had a very limited overview of what they were and are participating in. They were and are creatures of those forces, to the extent that consciousness itself became the main product and output of that system, to the point that the boundaries of knowing fantasy and unknowing delusion have faded beyond recognition, as reality is reduced to imaginative iconography, whether that be public relations and marketing or academic postmodernism; whether public sector or private.
Blaming 'the other guy' for the misfortunes of the world guarantees a perpetuation of self canceling intra-system conflict modeling (Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum) that keeps us from looking for and identifying the larger architecture of our problems. These are much more serious than the consciousness governance apparatus lets on, much in the same way as Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry was able to do by reconstructing victory and optimism out of the ongoing defeats of the last two and a half years of WW2.
We definitely need deeper and less polarized thought on these issues, as you are exploring in your comment. We can acknowledge massive problems in the West, culminating in the catastrophes of two world wars. But the wholescale rejection and attack on all Western values--which we can call the postmodern--is a complete folly (though the solution is of course not a rigid retrenchment to Western "hegemony"). You might appreciate a book called Not-Two IS Peace which explores this from both political and metaphysical perspectives (online excerpts available, just google the book title).
I agree that “leaving the left” has become kind of a tiresome trope, but gee, you had a lot to get off your chest, Anonymed! I think what you’re saying is that sanctimony is pan-political. Even those with undeclared (or mysterious) political leanings are not immune. It’s good to know that at least SOMEONE was really and truly right all along : )
In my defence, I did say it was probably uncouth. And don’t despair, the irony of a sanctimonious man-child calling everyone else sanctimonious isn’t lost on me. But I’m still right ;)
Yes, you are right (as in, correct). I forgot to say that I liked the article. The following was bang-on: " ... the broadest possible coalition is needed to beat back this menace. The anti-woke tent is a big one, so welcome, even if you were born yesterday."
Great points. It is very tempting for people, rather than say "I was such an idiot. I sincerely hope I'm less of an idiot now" instead say "I was correct back then, but I see things have changed. I have always been right, it's the world that is wrong". (The worst example is Sam Harris https://pairodocs.substack.com/p/the-unravelling-of-sam-harris )
I worry that many of these folks who are now "anti-woke" don't see that the problem is authoritarianism and concentration of power. Rather than diffusing power to the individual as much as is possible, they see the answer as putting their OWN people (or themselves) in the power positions. RFK Jr. springs to mind: it's not OK to force people to get vaccines. It is OK to force people to follow climate dictat.
It seems to me that this is a perennial human failing that we can't correct, only mitigate by keeping the prow of our societal boat pointed in the direction of individual liberty.
I'm fairly conservative and moderately right-wing, have been viciously anti-woke from the beginning, and welcome prodigal refugees from the Dark Side. I think that conservatives have to make common cause with genuine liberals if we are to slay this beast which has usurped liberalism and subsumed our social institutions.
I thoroughly enjoyed the delicious finger wagging moral lecture and rap over the knuckles this essay administers to ideological naughty boys and girls who perversely never grow up, but still grow old.....
I had something of the same sensation after the thoroughly successful Australian campaign and 'plebiscite' in 2017 to sanction homosexual marriage, which I had vehemently opposed and been branded as a 'bigoted homophobe' for my trouble.
Less than a year later, many of my accusers found themselves being in their turn accused of being bigoted transphobes. And while the schadenfreude was exquisite, in these times, my enemy's enemy is my friend. The sobering fact is that it isn't just feminist activists who are the victims of The Tranzis.
I think dear Anonymous that you underestimate just how convulsive events are becoming to the point that all our old categories of political affiliation are more or less moribund. Talking about 'left' and 'right', 'conservative' and 'radical'' and 'traditionalist' and 'progressive' is 80-90% rear view mirrorism (apologies to Marshall McLuhan). They tell us very little about what is going on and only serve to muddy the waters.
Beneath the murky color and movement that passes these days for political discourse, is an unsustainable order, all of whose operating platforms are starting to chaotically buckle, whether social/existential or ecological.
The relatively (there was a cold war going on) sunny post WW2 and ongoing period of stability and prosperity that I was born into, grew up in and have aged through, are starting to swell and kink under the pressures generated not only inside its economic and cultural 'boilers' but the world order it created. The 'left' is no more culpable for this than anyone or anything else.
This is a system problem that is a result of very powerful accumulating forces that have built what we now have in front of us, over a 50-70 year period. Processes of change have been built around those forces by parties that had a very limited overview of what they were and are participating in. They were and are creatures of those forces, to the extent that consciousness itself became the main product and output of that system, to the point that the boundaries of knowing fantasy and unknowing delusion have faded beyond recognition, as reality is reduced to imaginative iconography, whether that be public relations and marketing or academic postmodernism; whether public sector or private.
Blaming 'the other guy' for the misfortunes of the world guarantees a perpetuation of self canceling intra-system conflict modeling (Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum) that keeps us from looking for and identifying the larger architecture of our problems. These are much more serious than the consciousness governance apparatus lets on, much in the same way as Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry was able to do by reconstructing victory and optimism out of the ongoing defeats of the last two and a half years of WW2.
We definitely need deeper and less polarized thought on these issues, as you are exploring in your comment. We can acknowledge massive problems in the West, culminating in the catastrophes of two world wars. But the wholescale rejection and attack on all Western values--which we can call the postmodern--is a complete folly (though the solution is of course not a rigid retrenchment to Western "hegemony"). You might appreciate a book called Not-Two IS Peace which explores this from both political and metaphysical perspectives (online excerpts available, just google the book title).
I agree that “leaving the left” has become kind of a tiresome trope, but gee, you had a lot to get off your chest, Anonymed! I think what you’re saying is that sanctimony is pan-political. Even those with undeclared (or mysterious) political leanings are not immune. It’s good to know that at least SOMEONE was really and truly right all along : )
In my defence, I did say it was probably uncouth. And don’t despair, the irony of a sanctimonious man-child calling everyone else sanctimonious isn’t lost on me. But I’m still right ;)
Yes, you are right (as in, correct). I forgot to say that I liked the article. The following was bang-on: " ... the broadest possible coalition is needed to beat back this menace. The anti-woke tent is a big one, so welcome, even if you were born yesterday."
I can take the hits don’t worry :) thanks for reading
Given your negative opinion of Julian Assange, you may enjoy my Julian Assange sonnet:-
From the Sonnets, Mostly Bristolian
Sonnet 151
He's to be scoped, the rapey narcissist,
athwart on campbed with his cigarette,
recalling ruefully his Swedish tryst.
It's pretty gamey in that oubliette,
and latterly his visitors are few
and low status: just junior attaches
and interns. No more television crews
now camp beneath his balcony. That craze
for troubadors paying court to caytiff king
has passed. Now Julian's the apostate
there'll be an end of virtue-signalling.
Let Cumberbatch and Gaga find new mates.
This creep will linger like a nasty smell
inside his Ecuadorian hotel.
Thanks James. Am on it already.....https://www.writing.com/main/books/item_id/2064958-The-Secular-Fundamentalist