Yesterday I watched a fantastic movie- Thirteen Lives. I heartily recommend the film. It’s a tale of unlikely heroes attempting to rescue twelve Thai boys and their coach trapped in a flooded cave during monsoon season, made all the more compelling because the movie is based upon a true story. It was only later lying in bed I wondered how the critics had reacted to the movie. After all, it’s a film about a bunch of mostly middle-aged white guys trying to save a soccer team of non-white Thai kids- a story almost designed to challenge the preconceptions and prejudices of the Cultural Left.
But no, they couldn’t, could they? One couldn’t dislike such an excellent movie purely on the basis of the arbitrary characteristics of the participants involved, especially when real life events dictated the racial composition of the cast? Surprisingly not- Rotten Tomato gave the movie a critics score of 88%, only a few points shy of the 94% given by the audience. Of course, scrolling through the excerpts from reviews, one can’t help but notice the occasional nod to Wokeness with the odd reference to White Saviours, but given that this a marked departure from movies which critics loved, but audiences hated- like the all-female replacement of the beloved classic Ghostbusters, perhaps the critics can be forgiven the odd lurch into their preferred ideological cult, with its establishment mantras and received dogmas. Perhaps not.
But more importantly, perhaps we really have reached Peak Woke!
After all, Netflix has recently told its more ideological employees that if they don’t like the company offering a more broad range of content, some of which the woke find problematic, then they should seek alternate employment elsewhere. Meanwhile, the Washington Post recently terminated reporter Felicia Sonmez for harassing colleague Dave Weigel over the ‘sexist’ retweet 'Every girl is bi, you just have to figure out if it's polar or sexual'- an observation perhaps not entirely without merit, given the resulting backlash to a relatively tame bad joke resulted in a 30 day suspension without pay. One wonders what would have been the response had the tweet pathologized Straight White Men and been entirely more serious, rather than just a joke. Cheers and instant adoration, one suspects.
So have we reached Peak Woke?
Probably. But only in those institutions which are responsive to market forces. With CNN’s viewing figures in the toilet and their profits having just dropped to below $1 billion for the first time in a number of years, it’s rapidly becoming apparent to anyone seeking to make a buck in the cultural realm that Woke is passé, finnito, a fad which has had its day, but is rapidly passing its sell-by-date. Recently, the Halifax Bank in the UK experienced an en masse exodus of customers after a Social Media Manager told customers to leave the Bank if they didn’t like the new staff badges, complete with gender pronouns.
In the end, Woke lost the Culture War in the marketplace not because it was inversion of everything our moral senses had taught us in the West- to only discriminate on the basis of ability, and treat people according to the content of their character, not the arbitrary groups to which a person just happens to belong. No, Woke didn’t lose because it was a morally objectionable and sought to define the complex beauty of a human individual purely on the basis of group pigeonholing. Woke lost because it was just plain boring, and because people were simply sick and tired of being lectured to by a preachy and prudish youth devoid of experience or expertise in anything other than unfalsifiable academic conspiracy theories. Above all, Woke lost because it made the presumption that anyone who didn’t agree with equity, or socialism by stealth, must be a bigot, racist, ignorant or all three.
So yes- we have reached Peak Woke- but only in those areas of the social domain which are susceptible to, and governed by, market forces. Alas, the Long March through the institutions- in academia, the bureaucracy of the permanent state and many other aspects of public life- has been going on for a very long time. I suspect it will take a generation for the delusional pathology which has wormed its way into our institutions to pass. Maybe in twenty years time the current generation will look back on these years in the same way that those who lived through the radical sixties looked back on them in the eighties, with all but the ideologically committed experiencing a degree of abashment at the excesses and follies of youth, but I doubt it. I imagine instead they will become like the purveyors of the Socialist Worker, faded irrelevancies- still obsessing over the highly anecdotal extreme weather event, imagining that the world is going to end in twelve years, and becoming highly annoyed when one points out London still isn’t permanently flooded- tetchily pointing out the occasional precipitation-based river flooding, which is categorically not attributable to climate change- at least according to the IPCC.
Since I watched news coverage of this amazing rescue -never knowing whether it was going to end in tragedy - I can’t wait to see the film. I did notice the families of the boys had no trouble at all with ‘white saviours’, possibly because they were real people who live on love, not Theory.
I was like you. At the time, I followed the story from afar with great interest. There was something eminently fascinating about a few passionate hobbyists rising to the level of world experts in their field- to the point they were actually able to save lives.
'I did notice the families of the boys had no trouble at all with ‘white saviours’, possibly because they were real people who live on love, not Theory.' sadly, in the West it seems as though the political overwhelms the personal on a daily basis. I think that often when people feel powerless and miserable in their own lives, they seek to influence the world by proxy, through government.
One of the most glorious moments in the history of mankind -- the entire bloody planet agreed that those kids were going to be saved no matter what it took and dozens of people put their lives in mortal danger -- and the wokies have to grumble about White Saviors. The only fatality, IIRC was a Thai diver.
"So have we reached Peak Woke?"
There is hope!
"Recently, the Halifax Bank in the UK experienced an en masse exodus of customers after a Social Media Manager told customers to leave the Bank if they didn’t like the new staff badges, complete with gender pronouns. "
Stinking marvelous. The proles are rising!
But as you say, purging academia will take one hell of a lot of work and time.
Of course. Still, I think we'd all agree that the 'nest' is in academia. If that were disinfected one might hope that government would simply be unable to find new spreaders. One could perhaps describe wokeness as a disease of academia.
Love this post, Geary. I imagine the Thai kids and coach were grateful for any saviour, colour be damned. In today's environment surprised the producers stayed true to the races of the people in the real story. I am hoping to see the pendulum start to swing back to a place where all are respected and we can throw RACISM2.0(tm) and co-ideaologies on the bonfire. The people who helped me most have been white men and that includes helping me grow a career in finance. And it wasn't just one person, it was many all along the way. So I resent seeing white men be the subject of stupid marketer ideas and derogatory comments by brain dead wokesters with sub-standard uncritical thought processes. Over the years I've gone from dissonance to abject intolerance of the whole phenomena which seeks to see or invent malevolence where non exists in order to justify some moronic ideaology.
A while back I was in a discussion forum, and happened to mention an old Harvard Business Review article which demonstrated that one of the best ways of aiding the promotions of people traditionally excluded from senior echelons was voluntary mentoring schemes. In fact, mentoring is proven to work far better than the current Diversity Industry.
Of course, one of the comments I received back was that the sarcastic observation that 'marginalised' people didn't need straight white men lecturing them....
Crazy! Mentoring relationships are easily the most productive and rewarding in most careers.
Only thing that worked for me. I came in as an administrator, worked hard, helped people solve their problems, obtained credentials and I was given a hand up each time. I did not do nothing to receive help, though. I deliberately made myself someone who worked hard and deserved the help. This appears to be the missing aspect in DIE, immutable characteristics shouldn't determine who gets help and who doesn't. I came from very modest beginnings which only served to make me self conscious and over compensatory, work harder than anyone and it helped me.
Sounds a bit similar to my story, actually. I started in a factory administrator role (after dropping out of Uni because of a car accident)- it was demanding, but not necessarily very well-paid. Over time, thanks to the intervention of several senior types I became a superuser and was deployed in all manner of firefighting, purchasing, production engineering and project work tasks. When I left that particular employer I was the best-paid administrator in the division, by a significant margin.
Here is the article I mentioned above: https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail . What it rightly points out is that senior managers are often uncomfortable entering informal mentoring relationships across groups, where they feel as though their constructive criticism might be taken the wrong way- perhaps leading to potential HR issues. Some form of mechanism for formalising the relationship would go a long way towards allowing mentors to operate across boundaries to get to the talent, regardless of sex or race.
But what most places have at the moment is the complete reverse- it stokes artificial divisiveness and encourages people to 'stay in their own lanes'- a concept which I truly despise. Where I do think there should be some room for constructive discrimination is on the basis of socio-economic class- it's been my observation that those born further up the socio-economic spectrum tend to have a higher degree of Dunning-Kruger, almost as though they feel as though advancement is their natural entitlement, whilst those born to humbler circumstances tend to be grateful for any opportunity offered and more loyal- it's not always the case, but often they are willing to put up with their current lot when they should be fighting for the next opportunity.
It doesn't do any organisation any good to have people working below their optimum level of ability. Besides, all of the Peter Principle types I've known have been from the entitled higher social background group- a case of 'talking the talk, but not walking the walk'.
So I agree completely with your last sentence. I was able to advance two progress chasers into supervisors slots where previously it might have been the case that the company would have hunted outside for the talent. Don't get me wrong, at the managerial level the old system of having about 50% of the talent coming from the graduate path was probably about right- but we seem to have lost the art of fostering and advancing talent from within.
Yes yes yes! Your comments on socio-economic dis-advantage, Dunning Kruger - yes.
What happened with me and you, Geary, would probably not be possible today - all of this mentoring / advancement would no longer go through the informal networks but would be driven by HR - who lately I find to be have too much power And the very people that make decisions based on immutable characteristics to bolster their own KPIs.
I look back and wish I had had more confidence, but because of my background I always felt “lesser than”. Sad really that I could not shake that off.
Woke is not over and it is just a part of a bigger something that for better wording I could call a movement. Maybe we reached peak of this nonsense but have not reached peak of all the other nonsense that is literally destroying the foundations of our society now: covidists insist on lockdown and the jab and I would be surprised if only Germany required FFP2 this winter. The net-0 in area of climate is another one. Eat the bugs, evil Ruskis, electronic currency controlled by the gov., social credit systems are other. I have no clue how it looks in other countries. I have broader access the real people only here in Germany and in Poland. In Poland people are sometimes willing to talk but as in Germany not willing to question the narrative. This is beyond their mental capacity and I can see why - just a few years ago I was like that too but then I started to have doubts - around 2015 - when my media accounts have been removed in a moment I asked questions about Merkel motives about "we cannot control the borders" back then. Then came reports of sea rescue missions at the cost of Libya when the number of drowned people fell when the rescue missions were forcefully stopped by Italian authorities. I read up material on this then. Then I read IPCC reports and investigated what real scientists really have to say about the subject. When covid came I was clearly on the wrong path - here in Germany they call us names for questioning orthodoxy.
This process is rare - I do not see many people going over it. Most of us just does what we always do. I have asperger which makes me very uncomfortable with things that do not add up.
I hope that woke has reached its peak indeed. I have my doubts. Has Travistock been closed and the criminals that drove it charged? No the clinic was just split into regional ones.
Maybe the media noticed that woke does not sell but more likely they feel the squeeze caused by these other polices now. I suppose this is how humanity always worked - there must be a big blow to change the path and sometimes we indeed reach the edge of the cliff and go over it.
When woke dies (which it did not) we still have these other policies that kill our civilization. There are plenty of them. This only ends when these policies clearly fail and people have nothing to eat.
In a poor country like Sri Lank it took one season to reach that point but the change did not come. - the regulation that caused the collapse are still enforced. I wonder what else must happen to stop these processes? Nuclear war?
I agree with every point you make. I think we've probably reached Peak Woke in the cultural sense- as witnessed by the fact that the numbers of kids identifying as trans in America has reduced for the very first time, generationally speaking, but we have a long, long, long, long way to go to remedy the extent to which woke has invaded and captured our institutions.
One good thing about the various narratives we are exposed to, most particularly the pathological belief that we are in the middle of climate emergency- rather than treating climate change as the long-term serious problem that it is (if one actually reads the IPCC)- it that legacy media is slowly dying a death as more and more people expose themselves to independent media, without the conformist narratives which are so obvious when one takes the time to look.
Of course, it's one the reasons why they want to curtail speech and control online engagement, because the media has always been their preferred way of 'manufacturing consent'. We saw a resurgence of media power during covid, but since then people have seen the inconsistency, as all the things they once told us to do quickly become defunct. People don't just forget. They will remember. And it will lead them to question the wisdom of whatever supposedly expert opinion governments roll out next.
In a sense it has already happened, if we look at the support enjoyed across Europe for the Dutch farmers. The media may go out of its way not to mention it, but I know a lot of people in the UK who are aware of it- from gardeners to plumbers to boiler repairmen. I think the main thing to do is to prepare ourselves- and make sure the politicians can't wriggle their way off the hook when the results of their catastrophic policies become apparent. When it becomes an existential matter of food for people in the developing world the reaction will be far more visceral than the European slow, boiled frog reaction to having our leaders spend exorbitant amounts on technologies which have proven abject failures.
These two policies: limiting the food production and going out of way to force green energy are already enough to put our world upside down.
I wish the Dutch farmers lots of luck but I am a pessimist at least for this battle is almost lost already. My German neighbour, an educated guy said: Rutte's plan is ambitious. No consideration for consequences nor sympathy for human suffering not even considering plan's efficacy - it is just ambitious. How do you affect a state of mind of a religious fanatic?
I recall similar things happened in my old country at the beginning of communism - quite some people really believed and raising voice to show at inconsistency was seen as treason and treated accordingly.
I called it religion and there are certainly religious aspects to all of this. Maybe this is not really religion but a broken sense making? I recall a video on this few years back. When constantly fed with wrong information with emotional overload attached to this then people align and make the view pushed on them from all channels to their own one? There is no really easy way out of this I am afraid. Maybe cold winter would do but it is really a sign of decline if one hopes for a disaster to change other people's mind. Maybe it is really unavoidable. maybe we really have to collectively go over the cliff? Or maybe we are mistaken? I mean this all breaks my belief system in which we are half rational half emotional beings as the ratio part is small? Can this really be?
'I called it religion and there are certainly religious aspects to all of this.' I watched a podcast interview today which has a direct bearing on this- Jordan Peterson interviewing renowned psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, author of 'The Master and His Emissary'. He attributes the phenomenon to too much left-brain thinking, which invites an overly mechanistic view of the world which is inherently bureaucratic and dehumanising.
Anyway, it's a fascinating watch and I learned a lot from watching it- but still have to go away and think about it to see how it interrelates to the rest of the world puzzle I'm in the process of building.
You reached a similar conclusion that I and others have come to. Nature is healing. We’ve a long way to go and we aren’t out of the woods yet. But we’re seeing the signs. Turns out people still have a little common sense. I’m not sure we’re at peak woke yet, but if we aren’t it’s coming soon.
Interestingly, in this article, David French also makes a similar point. I think he may even use the term “peak woke.” He is perhaps a little overly optimistic, but he also uses a phrase I happen to like and that I’ve applied to wokism and Rawlsian autonomy mumbo-jumbo: “reality gets a vote.”
It’s behind a paywall but you honestly it’s probably worth the $10 to subscribe for a month, read the article and go and read a bunch of their posts/archives, and then unsubscribe if you don’t want to continue. Plus the comments might be a good place to engage with people who might subscribe to your newsletter. Occasionally you’ll see me in the comments there.
“ Alas, the Long March through the institutions- in academia, the bureaucracy of the permanent state and many other aspects of public life- has been going on for a very long time. I suspect it will take a generation for the delusional pathology which has wormed its way into our institutions to pass. Maybe in twenty years time the current generation will look back on these years in the same way that those who lived through the radical sixties looked back on them in the eighties, with all but the ideologically committed experiencing a degree of abashment at the excesses and follies of youth, but I doubt it. ”
That’s basically my assumption too.
“ But only in those institutions which are responsive to market forces. ”
Turns out the solution is… the free market! The market actually does create virtue, after all! Bryan Caplan had some stuff on his Substack just recently about this too. Although he’s calling for more active market-based attacks on woke capital (hostile takeovers).
'He is perhaps a little overly optimistic'- the same is true of me, perhaps. But I have to be an optimist in this regard because I see real dangers in the mindset of thinking of those across the political divide as enemies or bad people, rather than adversaries or opponents with bad ideas. Ironically, a while back I took the time to talk extensively with a young Canadian progressive teacher called Jeremy. He had incredibly good intentions and was a very good teacher- he just hadn't been exposed to any ideas from the other side of the political spectrum, and only knew the caricatures from the media.
As a heterodox, there are even some ECONOMIC progressive ideas I am willing to consider. For example, the Nordic model countries have stronger worker protections yet they are probably more friendly towards capital than America and generally score very high on the Index of Economic Freedom. I also think that the next generation isn't going to buy into free markets unless they are able to gain a stake through buying a home, so I am often critical of the way most housing markets are heading (it's a particular crisis here in the UK).
Don't get me wrong- there are bad actors. But mostly it's a case of a younger generation being fed bad ideas. A good example would be American crime- the Scottish Model of Public Health Policing proves that all the reform side stuff really works, especially if targeted towards youth reform- but where the Left gets it completely wrong is that it only works in tandem with the proactive data-driven discretionary policing and court-based deterrence which they find so objectionable.
'The market actually does create virtue, after all!' the market actually encourages people to serve others, it just gives them a choice as to how they feel their talents and hard work will best serve others. Not always successfully, as we creatives know full well- given the incredible levels of competition within the creative space- but it's also a collaborative process, which I love! I literally can't help myself- even if I see a writer who announces their pronouns on Twitter, I will still offer them constructive advice when they ask a question! Perhaps the craft of wordsmith creates a common bond which supersedes all others.
But I digress, by contrast socialism promises people they can be selfish- become poets, artists, comedians, musicians, etc. It encourages a world where bands play to empty rooms and no one collects the bins, toilets don't get fixed and everyone is forced to become their own electrician.
'Although he’s calling for more active market-based attacks on woke capital (hostile takeovers).' I think the whole ESG movement has proven disastrous. Sri Lanka had a 98% ESG score even before they blocked imports of fertilisers- that's what corporate virtue signalling to the world produces. A better system would be one which made a virtue of treating workers fairly, within the constraints of the market. The only problem would come with finding a way to fairly judge it- perhaps the econometricians could create objective metrics.
When I was visiting relatives in Hong Kong back in the nineties my uncle took me to a Pizza Hut (not my choice). He made a point of mentioning that wherever one went in the world, Pizza Hut's wages were calibrated to afford workers approximately the same standard of living wherever in the world they happened to be working. Perhaps that's not a bad place to start...
“For example, the Nordic model countries have stronger worker protections yet they are probably more friendly towards capital than America and generally score very high on the Index of Economic Freedom.”
Yes they are and do.
“ the market actually encourages people to serve others, it just gives them a choice as to how they feel their talents and hard work will best serve others. Not always successfully, as we creatives know full well- given the incredible levels of competition within the creative space- but it's also a collaborative process,”
Yes. Exactly.
“ But I digress, by contrast socialism promises people they can be selfish- ”
I think what most people on the Left don't realise in America is that Europeans personally pay for their social safety nets. Here in the UK, when one includes NI, we pay 1/3 on anything over roughly £1K a month, and more at the higher thresholds. In addition, VAT (consumption tax) is 20% and applied to any good or service which is non-essential (so not food, and a few other essentials). Then we have council taxes (our equivalent of property taxes) which for an average American single family home amount to around £240 a month. Then we have duties on petrol, tobacco and alcohol, which amount to slightly around 25% more than our property taxes.
I explained all this to a liberal professor I used to spar and chat with. To say he was gobsmacked is an understatement. Americans seem to be broadly in favour of many Democrat ambitions- what happens when they find out they've been lied to about the fact that rich people don't have the money to pay for it- and the expenditure will have to come out of their own pocket?
Don't get me wrong, there are still some fairly good, just revenue raisers out there which fall more heavily on the rich- a Tobin tax at half the rate which Tobin originally envisaged might work and be a good idea, and raise revenue to the tune of $30 billion- but it's a drop in the ocean by comparison to current US government spending.
On the other hand I did have a great idea about how to set-up a killer libertarian worker ownership model. What if it was a zero interest savings option, and any losses could be deducted from any government taxes you wanted- state. local or federal. I imagine a lot of true believers would the idea, although technically it's more of a community capitalist model (looking at the worker owner businesses which actually work).
It's a very small tax on financial transactions- about 0.05%. It mostly targets the currency exchanges common in offshore banking (and currency speculation) and particularly targets high frequency trades. In the UK it would raise around £10 billion and in the US somewhere between $20 and $30 billion.
For obvious reasons, it is fiercely opposed by global finance.
It may be that wokology has peaked, we can hope the sad fact is that we are not likely to regain much of the lost ground. Evil does much work unnoticed and that effort will not slow.
Thanks for the review. I passed on streaming it last evening to watch docus on the making of Dark Side of the Moon and Tommy. Maybe another evening. Cheers.
I share your hopes too. It does appear that wokeness is on the ebb . Like most cultural fashions it was a fad which was always destined to burn itself out. With sporting bodies beginning to properly exclude trans atheletes from women's competition things are indeed looking up.
I was never excised about the all female Ghostbusters though. That always struck me as just another gimmick to try and revive a dead franchise.
Not the only franchise subject to skinsuit resurrection. What I don't get is, with a few notable exceptions, most modern movies don't have character arcs or development. The main central characters only internal conflict usually seems to consist of being simply fabulous, but not realising it...
Since I watched news coverage of this amazing rescue -never knowing whether it was going to end in tragedy - I can’t wait to see the film. I did notice the families of the boys had no trouble at all with ‘white saviours’, possibly because they were real people who live on love, not Theory.
I was like you. At the time, I followed the story from afar with great interest. There was something eminently fascinating about a few passionate hobbyists rising to the level of world experts in their field- to the point they were actually able to save lives.
'I did notice the families of the boys had no trouble at all with ‘white saviours’, possibly because they were real people who live on love, not Theory.' sadly, in the West it seems as though the political overwhelms the personal on a daily basis. I think that often when people feel powerless and miserable in their own lives, they seek to influence the world by proxy, through government.
It's a tragedy of human disconnectedness.
"with the odd reference to White Saviours"
One of the most glorious moments in the history of mankind -- the entire bloody planet agreed that those kids were going to be saved no matter what it took and dozens of people put their lives in mortal danger -- and the wokies have to grumble about White Saviors. The only fatality, IIRC was a Thai diver.
"So have we reached Peak Woke?"
There is hope!
"Recently, the Halifax Bank in the UK experienced an en masse exodus of customers after a Social Media Manager told customers to leave the Bank if they didn’t like the new staff badges, complete with gender pronouns. "
Stinking marvelous. The proles are rising!
But as you say, purging academia will take one hell of a lot of work and time.
Well, it's not just academia, but also the bureaucracy of government.
Of course. Still, I think we'd all agree that the 'nest' is in academia. If that were disinfected one might hope that government would simply be unable to find new spreaders. One could perhaps describe wokeness as a disease of academia.
Love this post, Geary. I imagine the Thai kids and coach were grateful for any saviour, colour be damned. In today's environment surprised the producers stayed true to the races of the people in the real story. I am hoping to see the pendulum start to swing back to a place where all are respected and we can throw RACISM2.0(tm) and co-ideaologies on the bonfire. The people who helped me most have been white men and that includes helping me grow a career in finance. And it wasn't just one person, it was many all along the way. So I resent seeing white men be the subject of stupid marketer ideas and derogatory comments by brain dead wokesters with sub-standard uncritical thought processes. Over the years I've gone from dissonance to abject intolerance of the whole phenomena which seeks to see or invent malevolence where non exists in order to justify some moronic ideaology.
A while back I was in a discussion forum, and happened to mention an old Harvard Business Review article which demonstrated that one of the best ways of aiding the promotions of people traditionally excluded from senior echelons was voluntary mentoring schemes. In fact, mentoring is proven to work far better than the current Diversity Industry.
Of course, one of the comments I received back was that the sarcastic observation that 'marginalised' people didn't need straight white men lecturing them....
Crazy! Mentoring relationships are easily the most productive and rewarding in most careers.
Only thing that worked for me. I came in as an administrator, worked hard, helped people solve their problems, obtained credentials and I was given a hand up each time. I did not do nothing to receive help, though. I deliberately made myself someone who worked hard and deserved the help. This appears to be the missing aspect in DIE, immutable characteristics shouldn't determine who gets help and who doesn't. I came from very modest beginnings which only served to make me self conscious and over compensatory, work harder than anyone and it helped me.
Sounds a bit similar to my story, actually. I started in a factory administrator role (after dropping out of Uni because of a car accident)- it was demanding, but not necessarily very well-paid. Over time, thanks to the intervention of several senior types I became a superuser and was deployed in all manner of firefighting, purchasing, production engineering and project work tasks. When I left that particular employer I was the best-paid administrator in the division, by a significant margin.
Here is the article I mentioned above: https://hbr.org/2016/07/why-diversity-programs-fail . What it rightly points out is that senior managers are often uncomfortable entering informal mentoring relationships across groups, where they feel as though their constructive criticism might be taken the wrong way- perhaps leading to potential HR issues. Some form of mechanism for formalising the relationship would go a long way towards allowing mentors to operate across boundaries to get to the talent, regardless of sex or race.
But what most places have at the moment is the complete reverse- it stokes artificial divisiveness and encourages people to 'stay in their own lanes'- a concept which I truly despise. Where I do think there should be some room for constructive discrimination is on the basis of socio-economic class- it's been my observation that those born further up the socio-economic spectrum tend to have a higher degree of Dunning-Kruger, almost as though they feel as though advancement is their natural entitlement, whilst those born to humbler circumstances tend to be grateful for any opportunity offered and more loyal- it's not always the case, but often they are willing to put up with their current lot when they should be fighting for the next opportunity.
It doesn't do any organisation any good to have people working below their optimum level of ability. Besides, all of the Peter Principle types I've known have been from the entitled higher social background group- a case of 'talking the talk, but not walking the walk'.
So I agree completely with your last sentence. I was able to advance two progress chasers into supervisors slots where previously it might have been the case that the company would have hunted outside for the talent. Don't get me wrong, at the managerial level the old system of having about 50% of the talent coming from the graduate path was probably about right- but we seem to have lost the art of fostering and advancing talent from within.
Yes yes yes! Your comments on socio-economic dis-advantage, Dunning Kruger - yes.
What happened with me and you, Geary, would probably not be possible today - all of this mentoring / advancement would no longer go through the informal networks but would be driven by HR - who lately I find to be have too much power And the very people that make decisions based on immutable characteristics to bolster their own KPIs.
I look back and wish I had had more confidence, but because of my background I always felt “lesser than”. Sad really that I could not shake that off.
Woke is not over and it is just a part of a bigger something that for better wording I could call a movement. Maybe we reached peak of this nonsense but have not reached peak of all the other nonsense that is literally destroying the foundations of our society now: covidists insist on lockdown and the jab and I would be surprised if only Germany required FFP2 this winter. The net-0 in area of climate is another one. Eat the bugs, evil Ruskis, electronic currency controlled by the gov., social credit systems are other. I have no clue how it looks in other countries. I have broader access the real people only here in Germany and in Poland. In Poland people are sometimes willing to talk but as in Germany not willing to question the narrative. This is beyond their mental capacity and I can see why - just a few years ago I was like that too but then I started to have doubts - around 2015 - when my media accounts have been removed in a moment I asked questions about Merkel motives about "we cannot control the borders" back then. Then came reports of sea rescue missions at the cost of Libya when the number of drowned people fell when the rescue missions were forcefully stopped by Italian authorities. I read up material on this then. Then I read IPCC reports and investigated what real scientists really have to say about the subject. When covid came I was clearly on the wrong path - here in Germany they call us names for questioning orthodoxy.
This process is rare - I do not see many people going over it. Most of us just does what we always do. I have asperger which makes me very uncomfortable with things that do not add up.
I hope that woke has reached its peak indeed. I have my doubts. Has Travistock been closed and the criminals that drove it charged? No the clinic was just split into regional ones.
Maybe the media noticed that woke does not sell but more likely they feel the squeeze caused by these other polices now. I suppose this is how humanity always worked - there must be a big blow to change the path and sometimes we indeed reach the edge of the cliff and go over it.
When woke dies (which it did not) we still have these other policies that kill our civilization. There are plenty of them. This only ends when these policies clearly fail and people have nothing to eat.
In a poor country like Sri Lank it took one season to reach that point but the change did not come. - the regulation that caused the collapse are still enforced. I wonder what else must happen to stop these processes? Nuclear war?
I agree with every point you make. I think we've probably reached Peak Woke in the cultural sense- as witnessed by the fact that the numbers of kids identifying as trans in America has reduced for the very first time, generationally speaking, but we have a long, long, long, long way to go to remedy the extent to which woke has invaded and captured our institutions.
One good thing about the various narratives we are exposed to, most particularly the pathological belief that we are in the middle of climate emergency- rather than treating climate change as the long-term serious problem that it is (if one actually reads the IPCC)- it that legacy media is slowly dying a death as more and more people expose themselves to independent media, without the conformist narratives which are so obvious when one takes the time to look.
Of course, it's one the reasons why they want to curtail speech and control online engagement, because the media has always been their preferred way of 'manufacturing consent'. We saw a resurgence of media power during covid, but since then people have seen the inconsistency, as all the things they once told us to do quickly become defunct. People don't just forget. They will remember. And it will lead them to question the wisdom of whatever supposedly expert opinion governments roll out next.
In a sense it has already happened, if we look at the support enjoyed across Europe for the Dutch farmers. The media may go out of its way not to mention it, but I know a lot of people in the UK who are aware of it- from gardeners to plumbers to boiler repairmen. I think the main thing to do is to prepare ourselves- and make sure the politicians can't wriggle their way off the hook when the results of their catastrophic policies become apparent. When it becomes an existential matter of food for people in the developing world the reaction will be far more visceral than the European slow, boiled frog reaction to having our leaders spend exorbitant amounts on technologies which have proven abject failures.
These two policies: limiting the food production and going out of way to force green energy are already enough to put our world upside down.
I wish the Dutch farmers lots of luck but I am a pessimist at least for this battle is almost lost already. My German neighbour, an educated guy said: Rutte's plan is ambitious. No consideration for consequences nor sympathy for human suffering not even considering plan's efficacy - it is just ambitious. How do you affect a state of mind of a religious fanatic?
I recall similar things happened in my old country at the beginning of communism - quite some people really believed and raising voice to show at inconsistency was seen as treason and treated accordingly.
I called it religion and there are certainly religious aspects to all of this. Maybe this is not really religion but a broken sense making? I recall a video on this few years back. When constantly fed with wrong information with emotional overload attached to this then people align and make the view pushed on them from all channels to their own one? There is no really easy way out of this I am afraid. Maybe cold winter would do but it is really a sign of decline if one hopes for a disaster to change other people's mind. Maybe it is really unavoidable. maybe we really have to collectively go over the cliff? Or maybe we are mistaken? I mean this all breaks my belief system in which we are half rational half emotional beings as the ratio part is small? Can this really be?
'I called it religion and there are certainly religious aspects to all of this.' I watched a podcast interview today which has a direct bearing on this- Jordan Peterson interviewing renowned psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist, author of 'The Master and His Emissary'. He attributes the phenomenon to too much left-brain thinking, which invites an overly mechanistic view of the world which is inherently bureaucratic and dehumanising.
Anyway, it's a fascinating watch and I learned a lot from watching it- but still have to go away and think about it to see how it interrelates to the rest of the world puzzle I'm in the process of building.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6Vkhov_qx8
I do hope you are right about peak woke. The signs are promising!
Good movie. I was impressed that they chose to skip over the whole Elon Musk drama.
I wonder whether it was over fear of legal reprisals, or whether they thought it might serve as a distraction/taint the feelgood aspect of the film.
You reached a similar conclusion that I and others have come to. Nature is healing. We’ve a long way to go and we aren’t out of the woods yet. But we’re seeing the signs. Turns out people still have a little common sense. I’m not sure we’re at peak woke yet, but if we aren’t it’s coming soon.
Interestingly, in this article, David French also makes a similar point. I think he may even use the term “peak woke.” He is perhaps a little overly optimistic, but he also uses a phrase I happen to like and that I’ve applied to wokism and Rawlsian autonomy mumbo-jumbo: “reality gets a vote.”
https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/culture-wars-end-with-consequences
It’s behind a paywall but you honestly it’s probably worth the $10 to subscribe for a month, read the article and go and read a bunch of their posts/archives, and then unsubscribe if you don’t want to continue. Plus the comments might be a good place to engage with people who might subscribe to your newsletter. Occasionally you’ll see me in the comments there.
“ Alas, the Long March through the institutions- in academia, the bureaucracy of the permanent state and many other aspects of public life- has been going on for a very long time. I suspect it will take a generation for the delusional pathology which has wormed its way into our institutions to pass. Maybe in twenty years time the current generation will look back on these years in the same way that those who lived through the radical sixties looked back on them in the eighties, with all but the ideologically committed experiencing a degree of abashment at the excesses and follies of youth, but I doubt it. ”
That’s basically my assumption too.
“ But only in those institutions which are responsive to market forces. ”
Turns out the solution is… the free market! The market actually does create virtue, after all! Bryan Caplan had some stuff on his Substack just recently about this too. Although he’s calling for more active market-based attacks on woke capital (hostile takeovers).
'He is perhaps a little overly optimistic'- the same is true of me, perhaps. But I have to be an optimist in this regard because I see real dangers in the mindset of thinking of those across the political divide as enemies or bad people, rather than adversaries or opponents with bad ideas. Ironically, a while back I took the time to talk extensively with a young Canadian progressive teacher called Jeremy. He had incredibly good intentions and was a very good teacher- he just hadn't been exposed to any ideas from the other side of the political spectrum, and only knew the caricatures from the media.
As a heterodox, there are even some ECONOMIC progressive ideas I am willing to consider. For example, the Nordic model countries have stronger worker protections yet they are probably more friendly towards capital than America and generally score very high on the Index of Economic Freedom. I also think that the next generation isn't going to buy into free markets unless they are able to gain a stake through buying a home, so I am often critical of the way most housing markets are heading (it's a particular crisis here in the UK).
Don't get me wrong- there are bad actors. But mostly it's a case of a younger generation being fed bad ideas. A good example would be American crime- the Scottish Model of Public Health Policing proves that all the reform side stuff really works, especially if targeted towards youth reform- but where the Left gets it completely wrong is that it only works in tandem with the proactive data-driven discretionary policing and court-based deterrence which they find so objectionable.
'The market actually does create virtue, after all!' the market actually encourages people to serve others, it just gives them a choice as to how they feel their talents and hard work will best serve others. Not always successfully, as we creatives know full well- given the incredible levels of competition within the creative space- but it's also a collaborative process, which I love! I literally can't help myself- even if I see a writer who announces their pronouns on Twitter, I will still offer them constructive advice when they ask a question! Perhaps the craft of wordsmith creates a common bond which supersedes all others.
But I digress, by contrast socialism promises people they can be selfish- become poets, artists, comedians, musicians, etc. It encourages a world where bands play to empty rooms and no one collects the bins, toilets don't get fixed and everyone is forced to become their own electrician.
'Although he’s calling for more active market-based attacks on woke capital (hostile takeovers).' I think the whole ESG movement has proven disastrous. Sri Lanka had a 98% ESG score even before they blocked imports of fertilisers- that's what corporate virtue signalling to the world produces. A better system would be one which made a virtue of treating workers fairly, within the constraints of the market. The only problem would come with finding a way to fairly judge it- perhaps the econometricians could create objective metrics.
When I was visiting relatives in Hong Kong back in the nineties my uncle took me to a Pizza Hut (not my choice). He made a point of mentioning that wherever one went in the world, Pizza Hut's wages were calibrated to afford workers approximately the same standard of living wherever in the world they happened to be working. Perhaps that's not a bad place to start...
“For example, the Nordic model countries have stronger worker protections yet they are probably more friendly towards capital than America and generally score very high on the Index of Economic Freedom.”
Yes they are and do.
“ the market actually encourages people to serve others, it just gives them a choice as to how they feel their talents and hard work will best serve others. Not always successfully, as we creatives know full well- given the incredible levels of competition within the creative space- but it's also a collaborative process,”
Yes. Exactly.
“ But I digress, by contrast socialism promises people they can be selfish- ”
Yes. This is what people don’t understand
I think what most people on the Left don't realise in America is that Europeans personally pay for their social safety nets. Here in the UK, when one includes NI, we pay 1/3 on anything over roughly £1K a month, and more at the higher thresholds. In addition, VAT (consumption tax) is 20% and applied to any good or service which is non-essential (so not food, and a few other essentials). Then we have council taxes (our equivalent of property taxes) which for an average American single family home amount to around £240 a month. Then we have duties on petrol, tobacco and alcohol, which amount to slightly around 25% more than our property taxes.
I explained all this to a liberal professor I used to spar and chat with. To say he was gobsmacked is an understatement. Americans seem to be broadly in favour of many Democrat ambitions- what happens when they find out they've been lied to about the fact that rich people don't have the money to pay for it- and the expenditure will have to come out of their own pocket?
Don't get me wrong, there are still some fairly good, just revenue raisers out there which fall more heavily on the rich- a Tobin tax at half the rate which Tobin originally envisaged might work and be a good idea, and raise revenue to the tune of $30 billion- but it's a drop in the ocean by comparison to current US government spending.
On the other hand I did have a great idea about how to set-up a killer libertarian worker ownership model. What if it was a zero interest savings option, and any losses could be deducted from any government taxes you wanted- state. local or federal. I imagine a lot of true believers would the idea, although technically it's more of a community capitalist model (looking at the worker owner businesses which actually work).
What was the Tobin tax?
It's a very small tax on financial transactions- about 0.05%. It mostly targets the currency exchanges common in offshore banking (and currency speculation) and particularly targets high frequency trades. In the UK it would raise around £10 billion and in the US somewhere between $20 and $30 billion.
For obvious reasons, it is fiercely opposed by global finance.
I see
It may be that wokology has peaked, we can hope the sad fact is that we are not likely to regain much of the lost ground. Evil does much work unnoticed and that effort will not slow.
Thanks for the review. I passed on streaming it last evening to watch docus on the making of Dark Side of the Moon and Tommy. Maybe another evening. Cheers.
It's definitely worth a watch!
I share your hopes too. It does appear that wokeness is on the ebb . Like most cultural fashions it was a fad which was always destined to burn itself out. With sporting bodies beginning to properly exclude trans atheletes from women's competition things are indeed looking up.
I was never excised about the all female Ghostbusters though. That always struck me as just another gimmick to try and revive a dead franchise.
Not the only franchise subject to skinsuit resurrection. What I don't get is, with a few notable exceptions, most modern movies don't have character arcs or development. The main central characters only internal conflict usually seems to consist of being simply fabulous, but not realising it...