24 Comments

I really appreciated this analysis Carol. On “thinking more incisively into how its own internal problems have precipitated and even rewarded such infiltrating attacks” I’d recommend this essay by Hazony (https://quillette.com/2020/08/16/the-challenge-of-marxism/) as a helpful companion taken from the perspective of a Burkean conservative. He lays out the inherent contradictions and weaknesses within PL and its stated goals of freedom and equality and how PL and PLP are engaged in a sort of dance in which PLP wins on rationale. I may not agree with his conclusion but it provides a helpful lens to re-imagine how to maintain democracy and pluralism in this uncharted territory. This to me is the existential question and I think it will require some courage to synthesize what are valid critiques of

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Thanks, I'll definitely read it. I listened to a podcast with Hazony recently and was alarmed; he was very open about wanting to have Red States impose "Christian" laws and policies on their populations as much as possible. A lot of these post-liberal conservatives like Patrick Deneen seem very drawn to a sort of quasi-theocratic "solution" to the crisis of liberalism, which I think is (to say the least) pernicious. That said, their critiques of liberalism tend to be excellent and well worth taking seriously.

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Gonna re-read this over and over until it settles in. I’ve gotten into the habit of oversimplifying what I have been experiencing and this article gives it all a much deeper historical and academic context. Thank you.

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A very inciteful and instructive assessment. Thank you. Sadly, your observation that supposedly liberal institutions aren't nearly as liberal as they claim hits home.

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I see your points, and I appreciate your acknowledgement regarding regressive-progressives. However, I am the wrong person to answer your questions. I was born and raised in California—the Bay Area, specifically. After 63 years of watching my beautiful home state reduced and dismantled to its present Democrat dystopia, I along with thousands of other middle-class California refugees, left the state to somewhere less authoritarian, and where my tax dollars would be more wisely used.

California has been dominated by a super majority Democrat legislature for decades, and we all can see the horrific damage done when one political party has too much power with no checks or balances to guard from its own excesses. I would also say the same thing about the spineless, posturing, self-serving Republicans too. Right or wrong, I believe this was the main reason for Trump’s appeal to so many people.

I am hoping that the left’s excesses will help to develop a new party or movement that can embrace old-time liberalism pertaining to self-governance, free speech and free exchange in the marketplace of ideas, civil liberties, etc., in a spirit of working together while also showing a willingness to discuss and to compromise with those who have conservative ideas. The hate and vitriol (with its totalitarian and authoritarian methods) coming from the current tribalistic left is not the answer.

Thank you for responding to my comment and speaking so eloquently.

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So what IS wokeism? Calling it by another name doesn't define it.

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Hi, old progressive here.

I know this is going to sound completely uninformed, but stick with me.

#1. There is not a single "woke" position - not ONE - that I did not here copiously, endlessly discussed in New York City's East Village back in the 1970s. Not one. I suppose people in those circles are insular enough to think everyone in the universe must be aware of what they're aware of.

To me, I found these discussion unfathomably boring; mostly because they were issues that I knew about .00001% of the population would care about.

But I did make a prediction - I should add, I'm usually TERRIBLE at making political predictions (I insisted right up to election day that NOBODY was going to vote for Reagan).

I predicted that the Right would get ahold of some obscure academic hyper marxist nonsense and make it SEEM like the whole LEFT was about this.

There was a budding anarchic movement that was profoundly open to spirituality, totally different from Marxism, and I said, if the Right gets hold of this, BOTH the left in general AND the budding spiritual movement would be set back by about 50 years.

Well, that was 50 years ago and I hate to say I was right.

in the early 1990s, ex Leftist turned fascist reactionary David Horowitz was hired by some very wealthy think tanks. His express mission was to find the most bizarre left wing academics and write as if they represented the mainsream left.

If you don't believe this, Horowitz wrote a tellall in the early 2000s saying that's exactly what he did.

And it's 20 years later, and even people on the Left think the party's been taken over by wokeism.

Carol, I know you think I'm naive, but I've steadfastly challenged people who believe as you do, that wokeism is a big thing, or even that it's a real thing, and so far, NOT ONE PERSON HAS BEEN ABEL TO ANSWER THE CHALLENGE.

So here it is:

Don't count ANYTHING you've read. Nothing. Not in the most respected academic journals (especially the most respected academic journals. Not in social media, newspapers (paper or cyberspace newspapers). Anything.

Don't count anything you see on TV or in the media.

Don't even count what personal friends and acquaintances tell you about what happens in their schools or workplaces.

Putting all that aside, have you ever ONCE, in your entire life, been adversely affected by anything remotely to do with "wokeism.". I mean, has it affected your ability to eat, to find a place to live, to conduct any of your affairs, to earn money, to invest, to do ANYTHING that normal people do?

Now, I've asked this of people of all walks of life, on the Left, on the Right, in countries around the world, in states around the US, and so far NOBODY HAS BEEN ABLE TO GIVE ME EVEN ONE TRULY SIGNIFICANT ANSWER.

I'm not talking about someone getting annoyed at you because you said him or her instead of them.

I'm talking about real life.

I've been hearing about these "woke" issues since my 20s. I remember a particularly annoying moment in grad school when a feminist teacher pointed to a quote from Walt. Whitman I posted on a bulletin board and read it out, spitting out the word 'Him" and "He" which referred to all of "mankind."

Doesn't count. Apart from 3 seconds of irritation, it had absolutely no effect on my life.

I remember in the 90s, in my doctoral program, a very proper leftist student complained the ethnic studies (this guy was white and the teacher was black) was "racist" because it attemped to ascribe specific cultural characteristics to a specific cultural group.

Apart from 3 seconds lost from my life having to waste it hearing this kind. of nonsense, it had no effect on my life.

I read about wokeism all the time. I lived in New York City for 30 years; never encountered it directly, not once, in any way that had any real impact.

I lived in South Carolina for years, where all you heard (without the word "woke" back then) was all these horrific things the Left was doing. Asked people to give me examples in their own lives - couldn't do it)

Now I'm in "progressive" Asheville, and I DO hear people refer to it. And then I say, "oh gosh, that sounds terrible, has it had a negative impact on you personally?

no.

So, has it had a negative impact on you personally? I don't want to hear any statistics. I studied statistics and have used it in scientific research and can tell you from personal experience, in the social sciences, you can use statistics to prove virtually anything (actually, my friend who wrote a college textbook on quantum mechanics tells me it's not as far from that even in physics as people might think).

I'm eager to hear.

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Don Salmon: Talk to the second and third-place finalists in the NCAA women's swimming competition 2022.

Talk to dozens of academics at leading colleges who've been investigated and/or fired because they violated some presumed tenet of woke sensitivity. Talk to parents who must tread oh-so-lightly in expressing their concerns about kindergarten drag queen story hour. But for God's sake, after you do, please stop talking. You daft git.

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All true & much more but let's stay civil, K? Thx

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Carol: Those are terms of endearment. In my neighborhood we break balls of those we, um, engage with. Don's a big boy after all.

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David, I am not at all concerned if someone critiques something I didn't say. Let me repeat what I just wrote to Carol:

1. I NEVER said don't critique PCW (I'm getting tired of rewriting this so I'll just collapse political correctness and woke-ness into this acronym)

2. I CRITICIZED IT probably before some of you were alive, or at least, before you finished elementary school. I criticized it in the 1970s and ever since

3. I NEVER said it isn't happening (in fact, I specifically said, in my challenge, I'm not counting anywhere in education-land, because I know it's been happening there for 50 years). I should add, regarding one of your or someone else's comments, I know people get fired due to it. That has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with what I'm challenging.

Now, perhaps you can reflect on this and - if you want to do the dozens, I'm all up for it - actually respond to my point.

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You're welcome to answer my challenge also. I notice you didn't even address it. Notice the requirements:

In your personal, physical/real life interactions, OUTSIDE ANYTHING TO DO WITH ACADEMIA OR EDUCATION IN GENERAL, what percentage of your life involves (a) woke/PC or whatever you want to call it) vs (b) issues raised by Bernie Sanders, consistently, over more than a half century.

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I guarantee, there is nothing that the corporate overlords would like more than to have everyone here avoid my question.

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Please note, since everyone seems to be misreading, I AM NOT SAYING PC/WOKE IS NOT AN ISSUE AND IT NEVER HAPPENS.

I think by now perhaps it's clearer what I'm saying. By the way Carol, I AM critiquing liberals. It is the liberal misreading of the ENTIRE progressive agenda (as well as both the miserable record of both progressives and liberals in communicating their ideas in a way that reaches beyond the echo changer) that I am critiquing.

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I never ever said it doesn't happen. I'm sure everything you say is true.

Nobody here has even pretended to answer my challenge. I said APART FROM ACADEMIA OR SCHOOLS OF ANY KIND IN YOUR DIRECT PERSONAL LIFE.

So I assume, since nobody can answer it, it doesn't happen in a way that is significant, compared to, well, take all of Bernie Sanders' agenda.

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So if no one left of center ever critcized wokeism, Sander's agenda would be stronger? I'd say precisely the opposite is true: This stuff ripped holes in the Bernie 2016 movement and made it that much easier for the corporate Dems to finish it off completely.

Wokeism is ruining what's left of any sort of meaningfully social democratic left (which isn't much) and pretending that's not the case only accelerates the downward spiral.

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Wow, this is SO far from what I wrote.

Let's start with your first point

I CRITICIZED WOKEISM IN MY FIRST COMMENT!

I said i was aware of this exact same phenomenon in ALL the leftist groups I attended in the 1970s. I criticized it then and have criticized it consistently since.

I did not say it doesn't happen and I did not say you shouldn't criticize it.

Can we start there?

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You must be retired.

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Now, how about things that directly, physically impact me because. of the fascist right?

1. How many times did I hear, doing disability evaluations, someone from the law office I worked for call and say, "You don't need to go to your office to interview Mr. Smith. He died last night."

Died because the Right denied funding for disability judges.

2. I've spent 10s of thousands of dollars on extra health care, and also put off needed medical care, because the fascist Right in collusion with the .0001% does not want universal heath care.

3. I breathe in polluted air and am exposed to all kinds fo toxic chemicals because the fascist right does not want even to admit climate change.

people are dying, dying, dying, because of the fascist right. Furthermore, the right has been stoking mainstream fears about absurd, completely harmless 'woke" fixations on the Left, while being responsible for the most terrorist attacks in the US, far more than any Muslims and far far more than the Left.

And you're writing articles about some silly overreach that stupid politically tone deaf progressives make in a stupid but sincere effort to encourage equality; perhaps illiberal on college campuses, and maybe a professor or two (Jordan Peterson, who is basicaly someone who should never have gotten a professorial position NOT due to any "woke" beliefs but because he's an unbelievably stupid and incompetent psychologist! I don't think I've heard a single lecture of his where he hasn't gotten something wrong that any first year undergrad psych major couldn't spot a mile away. Maybe he's making such a loud noise about wokeism so people won't notice he's utterly incompetent!)

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Hi Don - Yes, it's negatively impacted me as well as numerous people I know - and no, I'm not going to go into all that publicly . . . what difference would more anecdotes make, anyway? There are countless testimonials you can find if you want to - which, clearly, you don't. And that's fine. But nothing you or anyone else can say will convince me that this isn't a serious problem. In claiming that, though, I'm certainly not trying to refute any of your claims about the pernicious actions taken by the right. At the moment, that's simply not my focus. And I don't see that changing for awhile. If hearing critiques of liberalism isn't what you want, then I'd respectfully suggest that this is not the Substack for you!

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Do you see you're doing exactly the same thing you accuse me of doing?

I'm most definitely criticizing liberalism.

I have ABSOLUTELY no doubt that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, maybe 100s, heck, I'll grant 2 million incidents of harassment for using the wrong pronoun, saying something insufficiently caring, compassionate, according to rather stringent, rigid, even obsessive compulsive standards occur - perhaps every day.

So, now that you know we're on the same page (boy, I constantly see liberals getting really defensive at even a HINT that maybe their concerns about cancel culture need critiquing!)

You're a lot younger than me and don't know we discussed all this 50 years ago. We didn't have the words PC or Woke" or any of that but believe me, there were countless obnoxious, pushy, rigid rejecting and whatever folks on the Left. It's something about the Left that draws that kind of Puritannical rigidity.

I get it.

But you still don't see you've been subconsciously brainwashed by decades of horrifically successful right wing propaganda.

I see my "tell me about the PERCENTAGE of problems you have with cancel culture vs everything else in your life" didn't work - it completely escaped you.

So I'll try another:

First of all, how is anything happening today different from when I taught in college 40 years ago, and a student who had access to social media could have ruined my or any teacher's career? For any number of reasons, among them no doubt being saying something that offended their liberal sensibilities.

Why is it, when someone in a church says the wrong thing and a right wing fanatic marches into the church and kills a dozen people, we don't call that cancel culture?

Because we don't want to think about the fact that there has been a concerted, well funded effort going back at least to the early 1990s to get as many people as possible to think that the greatest dangers in the county stem from leftists trying to get trans people using women's bathrooms or policing language in schools.

BOY, I know I've lost your attention by now so I have to repeat: I AGREE IT'S A PROBLEM. IT MAY EVEN ADVERSELY AFFECT SEVERAL MILLION PEOPLE EVERY DAY. I DONT' AGREE IT'S AS BIG A PROBLEM AS YOU THINK.

I would even say, every single person who puts cancel culture and wokeism on the same level as real problems in the world is DIRECTLY responsible for the latest bill in the Republican state legislature Which declares homosexuality to be unnatural and officially states the 2020 election was stolen.

if the democrats spent less time policing themselves on trivial matters (this holds BOTH for the people obsessed with canceling others and being woke, AND the people so up in arms about something that may affect about 1% of the population on a daily basis)

You know what, I’ll up the number. Let’s say it affects 30 million people on a daily basis. That’s 10% of the population.

25% of the population thinks Joe Biden is an illegitimate president and may have the strength to end Democracy in a couple of years.

Apples and oranges? I’M NOT CRITICIZING THE RIGHT HERE, I’M CRITICIZING LIBERALS. It’s the liberals, more than any other group, who are responsible for failing to implement even a laughably credible campaign to educate the public about, well, reality.

And they’re playing into the hands of the far right corporate psychopaths whose dream, for years, is to get the liberals embroiled with arguments about cancel culture and wokeism while they’re free to destroy the world economy, stoke polarization to create wars to help them make still more money, to destroy the world environment.

Yes, this is totally a critique of liberals. Maybe if you don’t want to hear a critique of liberals, this is the wrong substack for you. I’ve been watching this for 50 years, and I apologize if I’m a bit tired of the younger generations getting blindsided by this

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I like your passion. But I think it might be blinding you to seriousness of what's happening: the dismantlement of western societies thanks to the irrational hysterics coming from the far left regressive-progressive fascist overlords. I've been watching this for 50 years too. I just retired from teaching at a California public university. I retired because academia has become a regressive-progressive religious cult and is hell bent on forcing everyone to convert to its ever expansive ideology and endless ridiculous rituals.

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Hi Juls:

I may agree with you a lot more than you think.

Have you heard of the late journalist Molly Ivins? She had a wonderful saying that perhaps fit the political extremes many years ago:

"If you tell a liberal he's wrong, he may pause and say something like, 'Well, you may have something there. Tell me what you think.' If you tell a conservative he's wrong, he'll punch you in the nose."

I'll update it here for the present situation, and then ask you a few questions within a hypothetical scenario:

"If you tell "far left regressive-progressive fascist overboard," he/she/they are wrong, you may get disinvited to speak or even if you're one of the 3 or 4 humanities professors left on the planet, get fired. If you are Jewish, African American, Latin American, Asian (particularly if you're brown skinned from India or anywhere in the Middle East), and you exist, you may get murdered by a far right regressive fascist.'

OK, here's the hypothetical scenario:

It's March 1, 2023. Several Republicans in the House of Representatives have switched party affiliation and the Democrats are now in the majority again - it's 218 to 217. And you are selected as the 218th Democratic representative.

Without knowing ANYTHING about the content of the bills, how do you vote in the following areas, Democratic or Republican:

1. Environment

2. Infrastructure

3. Economic issues including minimum wage, taxation on corporations and the ultra-wealthy, Social Security and various programs to support the poor and indigent,

4. Criminal justice (including FUNDING the police appropriately as well as providing social services such as addiction and other mental health services)

5. Health Care, including expanding Medicare (reducing the power of large private healthcare companies to control medication, and health care for seniors in general) and expanding Medicaid, and more

6. Foreign aid, support for human rights and appropriate diplomatic efforts around the world

7. Education (assuming no bathroom bills or absurd legislation regarding language in books or the classroom)

8. Electoral reform (assume you have the power to do this, perhaps in a constitutional convention - hey, this is a hypothetical so we can assume anything), including abolishing the electoral college, term limits on Supreme Court Justices, more equal representation between the states for the House of Representatives, etc)

I'm guessing, since the fate of the world rests in your hands (I'm serious), that you would vote with the Democrats on virtually every issue.

But wait - let me ask you one more question: there's 99 members of the House progressive caucus. Here's a link to their current set of positions. Do you see anything on this page that you would consider a reflection of "irrational hysterics coming from ...far left regressive progressive fascist overlords"?

https://progressives.house.gov/the-progressive-promise

I don't disagree that there are far left loonies causing enormous problems. I met a bunch of them when I attended three ( I gave up out of utter frustration after 3) meetings of far left groups, consisting mostly of academics who spoke in tortured English) back in the early 1970s on the Upper Left Side (commonly known as the upper west side) of Manhattan. I predicted back then if such folks ever came to power it would be the ruination of the Democratic party.

So, outside academia, how much power do they really have? How would you vote, o Thou who havest the power to save the world, on the above issues, as the deciding member of the Democratic party in the House of Representatives?

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Darn, I forgot for electoral reform, ranked choice voting and perhaps even writing a new constitution (Jefferson proposed writing a new one every 17 years!!). Thought that was worth adding.

I'm waiting with baited breath to hear how you vote. The fate of the world depends on you.

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