May 12, 2021 - 7:00am
One of the strangest progressive slogans of recent years is the one that goes “we are the granddaughters of the witches you weren’t able to burn”. It’s plainly untrue — in most cases the people repeating it are the granddaughters of the people who lit the fire and cheered as the witches screamed.
Having unpopular opinions is stressful. Just as being a member of an ethnic minority in a neighbourhood raises the risk of mental illness, so does being a political minority.
This is why professions and institutions can so easily go through a purity spiral where people with minority opinions leave, or retreat into quietism – because most normal, healthily-socialised people don’t like to be hated.
It is why, as I wrote in this week’s piece on demographic trends, I can’t see a huge rebellion against Woke politics among the young.
Resisting prevailing cultural norms and beliefs is hard, even in 21st century western societies, which are arguably the most non-conformist in history. Most people have their lives to get on with.
In The Final Pagan Generation Edward Watts recalled how the cohort growing up in the mid-4th century watched, helplessly, as their culture was overwhelmed by the tidal wave of Christianity. Bit by bit, decree by decree, their religious supremacy and then freedom was hacked away, but:
I’m sure lots of Roman traditionalists expected the young to rebel against this strange cult of a Galilean Jew, yet within a couple of generations, their ancient religion had disappeared, and to even admit to being a worshipper of Jupiter was to become a social pariah. If your rivals control society’s taboos, as Christianity did by now, it makes it extremely hard to fight them.
Today progressivism also controls society’s taboos, which is why it’s extremely hard to argue against its beliefs and its policy ideas; people who do so fear losing their jobs and at best are just sidelined. (For any progressive reading this, many supposedly outrageously beyond-the-pale Right-wing beliefs are secretly shared by far more people than you imagine, it’s just that most normal human beings don’t want their lives made a misery.)
The social acceptability issue is also why so many of the prominent conservative talking heads appear like monstrosities; it takes a certain sort of person to say the unsayable, often attention-seekers, narcissists or the highly disagreeable. Witches, in other words.
When William Harvey proved that a witch’s toad was just a toad, she wasn’t grateful for ending the stigma of witchcraft. She wanted to be known as a witch, loving the attention and notoriety.
Today she’d probably be trending every few days on Twitter, abused by the self-proclaimed granddaughters of witches.
But witches aren’t the only ones who reject the new order. Progressivism already suffers from what Swedish academic Carl Ritter called “hegemonic degeneration”, that when a belief becomes established, made flabby by institutional protection, then the genuinely interesting and intellectually curious will look for something else.
The most intelligent people coming out of university now often seem to be, if not conservative, then at least critical of the new faith (not necessarily from the Right). But it also seems to me, at least, that many of the most intelligent critics appear to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, which makes them far more interested in truth than social acceptability. Perhaps it is with the neuro-diverse that our future hopes rests.
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SubscribeA small victory perhaps, but in the last week or so I refused my company’s invitation to attend an unconscious bias training session which, upon completion, would allow me to then sit on interview panels for prospective employees.
They let me sit on the panels regardless. So I say, whilst obviously dependent on your personal and professional circumstances, don’t be afraid to push back where you can.
At an unconscious bias training session at a site just before the lockdowns started (god only knows why they required freelancers to attend these but they insisted), I was asked by the trainer if I could identify any unconscious biases within me. I said yes, looking deep within my soul and I detect that I am unconsciously biased, against unconscious bias training. Did not go down well – I got a long black stare, and then no further communication from the trainer for the rest of the session.
Bravo, sir.
“Mr/Ms Trainer, if I could recognize the unconscious bias you are so sure exists, then it wouldn’t be unconscious would it?”
Ha ha. Great point always missed.
I’d count that as a success then – no further harassment. Sorry you had to sit through that.
It was just a bit of jocularity on my part – but it fell completely flat. Don’t think humour is a strong point of the people who believe in unconscious bias. There were no other consequences for me though.
I like to cheer those people with the immortal lyrics of the good ole West Coast revolutionaries: Gimme a J, gimme an O, gimme a K, gimme an E…what’s that spell?…what’s that spell?…what’s that spell?
Neither humor nor self-awareness.
Good for you – or on you, as I believe the British say. But why did you put an asterisk in “fascist” – that’s not considered an obscenity in the UK, is it?
It’s to avoid pre-moderation in the comments section.
Win-Win!
no as you’re self-employed you’ll have to give yorself a few sessions of unconscious bias and give yourself a good talking to if you are not up to spec. Fill out those forms where you evaluate yourself ‘I am a truly wonderful human being, I have never met anyone as kind & thoughtful as myself, i do not think I can be improved’, as this is basically what Robin DiAngelo & the other ‘experts’ are saying about themselves.
[insert Leo Di Caprio Great Gatsby gif]
If you can identify a bias, using the normal meanings of words it cannot be unconscious!
Good man.
i bless my age..I had ”positive discrimination” in certain jobs but Retired i dont have to put up with this bilge..
My bias is very conscious and acquired. They don’t seem to have training sessions for that, do they?
Godd for you…and for intellectual freedom.
Thanks Ed. Interesting piece.
My hope relies in “woke” simply becoming uncool. So it won’t be a rebellion per se, it’ll just be a set of ideas that become associated with a boring middle managers lecturing you about their morality (church basically).
I think you’re absolutely onto something there. For example I firmly believe that the outrage and enthusiasm of most of the fbpe PRO-EU types was purely because they wanted to position themselves as rebels standing defiantly against the mainstream. Woke effectively now IS the mainstream, and once these blue haired attention seekers realise that, they’ll move onto some other minority opinion nonsense. Equal rights for gay unicorns or some such b*ll*cks.
I think maybe it was the other way round – the Brexiteers were so outraged and enthused because they thought they were rebelling against the mainstream. Which in a way they were. A 48/52 split is too narrow to declare anything mainstream.
Yes, it was a relief for them to find out that there are more like-minded people. The media makes everyone feel like they are on the losing side of some cosmic battle.
Very cool young people I follow on YT are posting step-by-step dissections of “woke” so I suspect some of them are just as sick of it as the rest of us.
I’d like to locate some of them.
I’m an old radical with Invisible Disability. I’ve been in direct danger of my life 3 times over Civil Disobedience.
I’m disgusted with the “Woke” movement.
I can’t see how woke could be taken on by churches other than very liberal ones. It simply doesn’t fit with Christianity.
It is much more aligned with Satanism.
An interesting idea. It is certainly aligned with self-centredness which is the opposite of Christian teaching.
Richard Coles in Gay Pop group Communards, is radio4 Reverend of woke,rivalling Mucus Welby,archbishop of Canterbury ..
Both liberal so they can be more flexible
They need to get a grip before the muslims throw them both off the church roof
Already happened. Both the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church are under woke command now.
As I wrote above; they can because they are liberal. (I realise that the RC church is legalistic, but it is still liberal in the interpretation that is relevant to wok).
How so? I’m concerned.
A phenomena is that younger people now enter leadership positions in organizations over the heads of those with more seniority.
There are echoes of Christianity in Woke though. The exaltation of the lowly, the meek shall inherit the earth, saints and sinners, puritanism, blasphemy, justice warriors, preachers. It is just an extremely shallow version of it lacking any sense of responsibility for personal frailty or failure.
Yes, Tom Holland is interesting on this subject in his book ‘Dominion.’ (Ot, but I do enjoy his view that original sin is very democratic because no one is excluded!)
Here in VT, some of the church leaders are naive or even Marxist.
Check out the Interfaith Councils. They’ve become mouthpieces for Woke.
It actually was a pretty stupid article as his analogy of the pagans being replaced with the Christians is just an indication of the writers complete unconscious bias against Christianity. Under the Roman Paganism the society stagnated for 1000 years – it grew in might and size, but not in science, intellectual, creative, freedoms, and so on, Once the highly intellectual and moral Christianity replaced the vacuous and cruel cult of the Roman/Greek gods the West began its march to the unbelievable heights it achieved. (Now the normal person is just a secular/humanist the regression back is begun – Netflix is all based on the sadism and violent entertainments of the Colosseum the Christians stopped, morality is gone and pleasure alone is the sole motivator)
Cancle Culture is NOT religious, it is political. Better alologies would have been Communist take overs, Fas*is t takeovers, Black and Brown Shirts, Warlordism, and ‘Big Brother’.
Also of course the Roman Empire replaced itself with the Holy Roman Empire-same capital, similar power structure, even used the same language.Roman Empire was having trouble containing its empire so the split with the east was inevitable.
“similar power structure” Absolutely different power structure. The Holy Roman Empire (and Emperor) was Religious head, but Secular kings ruled, taxed their subjects, and held the armies.
The real Roman Empire collapsed because the later people rising to power were only out for personal power, and not for the good of the Empire – just as now where Biden has no care for the USA, but only for sheer power, which he gets by selling USA to deviant special interest groups. Much like the last of Rome.
When Christopher Hitchens on made his views of how religions have caused so much harm to humanity, without touching on the real benefits and civilising affects it also bestowed ,I thought he also omitted how fanatical political dogmas have deeply harmed humanity.Like the irational tyrannical woke movement today.
Woke ideology can be and indeed often is compared to a religion, or a church as you have it. However, I don’t see the same staying power as religions have, as there is no hope of life after death, whether in a different realm of existence, or reincarnation, or both. Hence, while it may take a while, I believe that “this too shall pass”.
By a curious coincidence, we will be holding our annual Woke blind wine tasting this weekend. It differs from our normal blind tastings in that as well as having to identify the wines with regard to country, region, appellation, vintage, grape(s), producer, cuvee etc, one also has to try and identify the pronouns of each wine. It’s very tricky but great fun.
To redress the balance, the following week will see our first ever White Privilege tasting, which will feature white wines only.
Brilliant Fraser.
I am going to engage in a little cultural appropriation of my own and try the same thing here in the wilds of Northern Ontario. Once the lockdown is finally lifted naturally.
Thanks for the laugh.
This all sounds like you are trying to impose your unconscious biases on the wine rather than allow it to self express.
LOL. Very funny. The problem with wokeism is they take themselves so seriously, and talk such obvious nonsense, I had to read your comment twice to be sure you weren’t reporting a real woke event.
I know! Where’s the wit, the joy in debating and having a laugh?
Any normal building site operates at a higher intellectual level than most HR meetings.
One of the characteristics of ideologies like woke is a total lack of humour!
Yes! The new puritans!
Latest HR conundrum is ‘Is white lined paper, white supremacist?
I’m actually offended that there is no Black wine, only white wine.
‘ … their ancient religion had disappeared, and to even admit to being a worshipper of Jupiter was to become a social pariah. If your rivals control society’s taboos, as Christianity did by now, it makes it extremely hard to fight them.’
That describes the exchange of one set of unprovable beliefs for another (‘Jupiter is the king of the Gods’ is ousted by ‘Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God’). A change of fashion, one might say.
However, wokeism goes much further than that, and claims to oust matters which are open to being proved and disproved. For example, mathematics is a device invented by white men for the perpetual subjugation of women and people of colour, the theory of evolution is an exercise in white supremacy and imperialism, rational thought is oppressive.
Wokeism wants to take us all into a post-fact world, a no-science world, an anti-reason world. I don’t want to live there. And I don’t think I’m alone.
Exactly. The Woke ideology is even more divorced from reality than communism/socialism. At least the USSR could build bridges and put a man on the moon.
Perhaps the most profound comment on politics was made by the Prince’s opportunistic nephew in Lampedusa’s novel. Il Gattopardo (The Leopard): “Everything must change so that everything can stay the same.”
Could the U.S.S.R. put a man on the moon? Maybe, but it never did.
and what was the name of the man the USSR put on the Moon, I must have missed that.
er…, except the Russians did not put a man on the moon, even Vlad the Impaler couldn’t airbrush the truth to that degree!
Total ‘Ark B’ ideology. (Douglas Adams)
Well the Russkies put A satellite on the Moon,farside 1959, First man in space 1961, first Woman in Space 1963, First Multiple man crew 1964, After Czechoslovakia repression August 1968,they lost Race to the Moon…&haven’t been back yet
Good point. Nonetheless, fighting wokeism (how long until spellcheckers recognise it?) with traditional conservatism won’t resolve anything. A new philosophy that satisfies both the religious need and the quest for scientific truth is required. Having said that, wokeism might just fizzle out.
I would say ridicule and scorn are the best tools to fight wokery. Make wokery socially unacceptable. Make it embarrassing. Don’t afford it the courtesy of taking it any bit seriously.
Be strident and vociferous in rejecting woke in the workplace, the university seminar room, etc etc.
one of the advantages of being older is that there is not much likelihood of having to “live there” as you put it. The same cannot be said of my grandkids, but when their parents either parrot some of this garbage or silently go along with it for fear of retribution, the outcome writes itself.
It’s the little boy who shouts “that bloke with the crown on his head, why has he got no clothes on?”, isn’t it?
There is already a rebellion, a silent rebellion, at the ballot box.
This isn’t happening politically. It’s a bottom up takeover of the values of institutions. The biggest expanses across institutions (to date) happened under Trump and under Boris.
Indeed, but the ballot box is where the rebellion is expressing itself. The mystery is why Johnson is allowing woke ideals to permeate institutions. The tide is possibly starting to turn though; the EHRC has quietly dumped its draft guidance for schools on gender-neutral toilets etc. which had initially been in complete misalignment with the actual law.
I think it’s happened without explicit direction from government, so when the government has looked to find its directives that have instigated it they have found none.
The report pushing back against the idea of all encompassing institutional racism was important first step as it gives institutions something official to hang their hat on when accused by activists at the local level. The cycle has been roughly as follows
Event – something must be done – accusation of institution being complicit and claims pupils are unsafe- institution has nothing official from government to push back against the claims – tries to make it go away – agrees to pay for specialist firm to come and look at its policies – appoints specialist firm (activist organisation) – embeds CRT into its organisational values – becomes powerless against first claims on the basis of its own values
The U.K. Gov paper allows institutions who are minded that way to stop it much earlier
True, whenever there’s an opportunity, people reject those with woke views at the ballot box. Doesn’t seem to make a massive difference though, does it?
Not in mainstream Media….Like Anti-science ”Climate nonsense” Humans worry about Nonsensical worries instead of Solar Flares which Can Wipe out whole Power stations,Laptops,GPS,Telecommunications,Factories,Hospitals etc…yet no one bothers to highlight this..
You are assuming that all millenials buy into ‘woke’ culture. But where is your evidence? The woke are loud and objectionable in their fanaticism, but perhaps the quiet people are silently disagreeing. Such has been the case down the ages. And they are the majority.
An interesting parallel is with the puritan woke’s equally narrow-minded and fanatical 17th century predecessors. They were equally convinced of their righteousness but they were not loved by the people who were absolutely delighted to see that back of them.
Perhaps they are silently disagreeing. And perhaps their silence is a form of agreement.
The author might be right, but I find it very depressing that there will not be an anti-woke rebellion. And I doubt the neurodiverse population will lead the fight against woke. For one thing, I’m not sure enough people fall into that category to have a major effect.
The ‘rebellion’ against woke has to be each of us taking a small stance against this ideology on a daily basis, or financially supporting reputable organizations, such as non-profit free-speech foundations, that take such a stance.
Today progressivism also controls society’s taboos, which is why it’s extremely hard to argue against its beliefs and its policy ideas; people who do so fear losing their jobs and at best are just sidelined.
That’s how totalitarianism has always worked. Somehow, depending on the autistic kids as the West’s salvation seems like missing the point. For now, the wokerati are comfortable with metaphorically burning the new witches at the stake. For now.
There’s pushback coming from different places: some academics (eg Kathleen Stock author of Material Girls) and members of the ‘conservative’ wing of the CofE which, ironically, is becoming a place of counter cultural resistance to the new ‘woke’ religion.
I’m minded to join the Russian Orthodox church.
But it also seems to me, at least, that many of the most intelligent critics appear to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, which makes them far more interested in truth than social acceptability.
As a parent of multiple children with autism, I would like to think so. However, given my experience with the ‘neurodiverse’ crowd here in the US I am not sure this is likely. There is a very loud group of higher functioning autistics, many self diagnosed, who rampage on the internet attempting to shut down and crowd out anybody who speaks up about severe autism and rail against various therapies for autism, never mind a cure. They tend to see themselves as ‘allies’ to various oppressed groups and very much part of the woke mob. Take a look at the reaction to the film ‘Music’ by Sia; for the record I have never seen this film, but I followed the reaction to it.
Black and white thinking can lend itself to extremes on either side of this kind of disagreement.
Neuro diverse. You mean people who think things through for themselves. That’s just thinking, and it is what everyone should be doing.
What most people do, though, is collect their opinions from those who have the requisite status. Belief in authority has never been stronger, and I doubt that thinking has ever been weaker.
Wokeness is solely a Western phenomenon. And even there, the rebellion has now started, primarily in and by red US states. But as with the witches, it will come to a compete halt only if, as and when it has become too costly financially to adhere to and uphold it- there was a great article on that here a while ago.
Millennials and Z are indeed most useless to count on in that regard though, as The 4th Turning predicted. Only the yet unborn might be driving our next Awakening- in 50 years time though.
Let’s hope that the money runs out sooner than that. Thanks to Lockdowns and MMT, that now seems very likely.
Not bad up until the bit about autism, which was just cheesy and annoying.
It probably takes someone on the autistic spectrum to get beyond the guilt tripping and the shaming and someone intelligent to navigate the labyrinth of sophistry and the need for control.
It might also be someone from the Armed Forces who has learnt to not let emotionalism get in the way of decision making and decided to extensively equip themselves with an intellectual toolkit.
Or it could just be a reformed masochist.
Jesus was a radical critic of his times but rather than promote an uncritical relativism that played on a simplistic binary of good and bad, he instead promoted universalism based solely on Love.
This is why Christianity and Monotheism revolutionised the world. It was absolutely inclusive and sought to eradicate the Old Testament duality of Heaven and Hell
In stark contrast, Wokeism is a continuation of the Old Testament which judges people as to whether they belong in Heaven or Hell. It is driven by strict criteria of inclusion and exclusion which translates as the purity spiral and is ultimately self defeating.
https://theawarenesscentre.com/are-you-a-masochist/
In other words, it is a human evolutionary dead end!
‘In stark contrast, Wokeism is a continuation of the Old Testament which judges people as to whether they belong in Heaven or Hell. It is driven by strict criteria of inclusion and exclusion which translates as the purity spiral and is ultimately self defeating.’
Exactly: dragging us back to a primitive dualistic view of the universe. Everyone is either ‘elect’ or ‘damned’ – no other options, no hope of redemption.
So who were Jesus’ ‘sheep’ and ‘goats’ then if he was so ‘inclusive’? And hasn’t historical Christianity always believed in salvation and damnation i.e. Heaven and Hell? Maybe we’re looking for ‘woke’ in the wrong place.
… is also a matter of perspective. Where i’m coming from (eastern bloc) leftism was the official state-sanctioned dogma in my youth, but it was widely and deeply despised by technically all of us. Those affiliated with leftism in any way – overtly or tangentially – were social pariahs, outcasts, untouchables in polite circles, no matter how rich they were (and they were). That’s how i grew up, and i still despise leftism – always will. I don’t regard leftists as socially acceptable. I regard them as a lower life-form. I know it’s not an entirely nice point of view, and – being a polite person – i keep it to myself, unless/until sufficiently provoked.
‘But it also seems to me, at least, that many of the most intelligent critics appear to be somewhere on the autistic spectrum, which makes them far more interested in truth than social acceptability. Perhaps it is with the neuro-diverse that our future hopes rests.’
So, the saviour of Western civilisation could turn out to be Mr Logic?
[This cultural reference will make sense only to readers of Viz magazine, I’m afraid.]
I used to love Mr Logic, Biffa Bacon, Sid the Sexist etc. I was leafing through a copy of Viz in the shop fairly recently (I didn’t buy it), and it’s tone has changed, ie jiggery wokery has crept in (I will have to buy a copy now just to check!)
Since neuro-diversity was raised above, it would be interesting to know how susceptible to wokeism mathematicians, engineers and scientists are. Our HR dept’ certainly is.
“No one can be woke enough, and you can’t nag people into behaving”. Said someone at some podcast. Wokeness is like parents constantly nagging to their children, in the end it all became blurry and the child will not listen anymore.
So I suggest to name woke persons “naggers” from now on
W
‘Twas ever thus…
Ed misses the point that the left, fundamentally, are anti-conformists, and as such will not settle into a woke norm. Only the cultural-liberalists will succumb, and that only briefly. My guess is they’re no more than 20% of the population.
I’m really fed up with the constant contrast by this sort of writer between Christianity and ‘ paganism’. He obviously doesn’t realise that in the ancient world, there was no such thing as paganism. You worshipped Jupiter, or Diana, or your household gods; later in the Empire civic acceptance depended on acknowledging the divinity of the State in the same way as saluting the flag.
the term pagan was coined by the Christian elite; it means ‘country dweller’, and implied that only stupid peasants still worshipped trees ( this is not a joke, tree cults were widespread in Gaul). The organisation and discipline of Christianity was one of the reasons that it was adopted by the upper classes , at a time when the traditional machinery of the state was failing. The idea that ‘ young people’ were somehow yearning for a return to the good old days of , for example, whipping young boys to death in front of a statue of Artemis, or throwing their first born children into a fire to please Moloch, seems unlikely.
I suppose what he really means is that he believes that ‘pagans’ were more sexually active .
If I ask any young people about being “woke” I usually just get dismissive comments. I suspect that young people simply have slightly different views and values to their elders, just as young people always have. They might grow out of some of these ideas, some might become the new orthodoxy.
I suspect that much of the panic about “wokeness “. Is overdone.
If it were confined to the young, you might have a point.
As it is, wokery is held by those too old to grow out of it as well, and really should know better.
If by “the autistic spectrum”, the author means “fanatical”, I would tend to agree. Right now, we need fanatics, and we’re starting to get them. As goes the Catholic Church, so goes the west, and at present, the only young men going forward for ordination are the Kamikazes. It’s only that mindset which can put a stop to the woke juggernaut. If that’s replicated in the wider society, then there’s hope.
I doubt if there will be a rebellion because most people don’t find ‘wokism’ disagreeable enough to rebel against.
It may be true that ‘many supposedly outrageously beyond-the-pale Right-wing beliefs are secretly shared by far more people than you imagine, it’s just that most normal human beings don’t want their lives made a misery.’
If that’s true it makes woke a very ‘conservative’ philosophy (or faith for those who prefer to use that language) – it relies on consensus and accepted societal norms. The legislative authorities (like the Roman Emperors with Christianity) are just catching up with what’s already going on in society. As we know many pre-Christian pagan traditions were maintained in the Christian era and there is no reason to believe that many pre-woke traditions won’t be maintained going forward. Lots of people may worry this is a sort of coup carried out by the intelligentsia or media or academia but if so it’s not a coup that is really creating havoc in most people’s lives or one that most people think it’s worth rebelling against.
Using the broadest definition of ‘woke’ the UK vote in 2019 was fairly evenly split between woke and non woke parties (if you call the conservatives and Ulster Unionists ‘non-woke’) so I don’t see evidence of an anti woke rebellion at the ballot box either.
I think it will be a good thing when the debate moves on from the cultural or identity politics of ‘wokism’, and the flipside cultural and identity politics of conservatism, and onto a focus on the economics of society and broader issues of equality and equity.
I doubt if there will be a rebellion because most people don’t find ‘wokism’ disagreeable enough to rebel against.
Perhaps when it invariably comes for them, as these cancers always do, “most” will change their minds.
Unfortunately, nowadays people love to play with figures.
I doubt if there will be a rebellion because most people don’t find ‘wokism’ disagreeable enough to rebel against.
Using the broadest definition of ‘woke’ the UK vote in 2019 was fairly evenly split between woke and non woke parties (if you call the conservatives and Ulster Unionists ‘non-woke’) so I don’t see evidence of an anti woke rebellion at the ballot box either.
As I said, playing with figures. In an election, if around 70% of the people vote the modern way is to assume that the non-voters are 50/50. In reality, the non-voters have not been motivated to vote because the woke practices have not touched them personally, YET. This does not mean that the non-voters would vote 50/50. If they were sufficiently outraged/annoyed/desperate they would vote and, more likely, all one way.
At least I was ‘playing with figures’ that exist – how people voted – in order to look for evidence of a rebellion against woke at the ballot box.
I’m not sure what your assessment of how people who didn’t vote but might vote in the future is based on.
Do you believe wokery is an accepted societal norm, with societal consensus behind it?