More brilliance here - Selecting for conformity - removing character as a selection issue is an evolutionary process that makes our world an ever shittier place
I enjoyed this but is wanders around a bit too much IMHO. I think it's worthwhile to place wokeism in the line of religion and beliefs. I suspect societies that become too woke may lead to less science as did Islam where anybody creative must be shunned for their inability to perceive truth as defined by a group. OTOH, while the Sauds supported all those schools to appease opposition they clearly seek to use their natural wealth to become even more wealthy, not quite in line with fundamental Islam. In the US the current administration seems intent on doing the opposite by adopting the religion of climate and some wokery.
Looking forward to more thought provoking articles.
From note 2: "Post-Enlightenment Progressivism (“wokery”) is more hostile to Christianity."
The irony of course, is that wokery is fundamentally Christian in its values. Christians believed in equality, but it was equality of souls, equality before God. Christians did not believe (as nobody believes) that people are equal in life, nor that they can be made equal. Woke is what happens when the instinct of equality, cultivated over two thousand years, loses its belief in God. Nietzsche warned of this very thing over 100 years ago. Yet Nietzsche appears to have had little effect on the culture of atheists and secularists.
Marxism is rather obviously Judeao-Xtianity with the awkard "God" bit dropped. See Acts 5 1-11 "... and a great fear fell over the whole church."
Xtianity: "Gives us all your money, or we'll murder you." Marxism: "Gives us all your money, or we'll murder you."
Xtianity was invented because Judaiasm wasn't working; Protestantism was invented because Catholicism wasn't working; Marxism was invented because Protestantism wasn't working; Critical Theory because Marxism wasn't working...
Right on down to 'Woke'.
Same playbook for the same metaphysical utopian gobbledy gook. Can we stop playing into these dolts hands? Marxism isn't 'spheshul' or different to be bracketed off as somehow 'different'. Before WWII Communism; Fascism; and Nazism were recognised as 'Left': all socialisms, just with different specifics for their hate.
Then an evil magic was worked.
Let's just stop it, eh? 'Cos you KNOW they'll just spin off another bullshit when this latest iteration goes to the wall as we see through otherwise.
NS Lyons quotes Lasch (paraphrasing) on the postmodern “belief” that “reality is a social construct”.
So, setting aside the issue of God, to the extent that “woke” is postmodernist and holds that “belief”, it is a quasi religious, dogmatic cult that is as conformist and anti-rational (ILLIBERAL) as traditional mythic-renunciate religion.
There are a number of social scientists (Musa Al-Gharbi, Keith Preston) that have pointed out that “woke” is the quasi religion of one of three factions of the power elites, the globalist tech oligarchs (virtual property owners), who are in an unholy alliance with finance capitalism, against manufacturing capitalism (physical property owners).
So, the left-vs-right narrative has yielded to virtual-vs-physical. “Woke” virtuals intend to reduce the traditional working classes to the status of peasants under neo-feudalism (Kotkin) , subverting “classically liberal” Constitutional order.
In other words, the globalist $billionaire funded “woke” “left” does indeed want to subjugate the working and lower middle class3s, destroying democracy and western civilization.
And that is possible because the legacy sense-making system, modern rationalism, WEIRD, is failing because it is fragile to techno-economic disruption of its hierarchies of curated expertise. Network information flows around legacy hierarchies, leading to an InfoGlut and loss of social trust.
Without high-social-trust, western civilization collapses into the tribalistic , totalitarian (ILLIBERAL) modes of social order.
The other aspect of belief-determining-worthiness is that (except through honest interaction) what a subject actually believes cannot be determined by another. Requiring a priesthood whose purpose is to define and shape belief - what to believe but also how to believe.
This colonization of the mind results in someone who never really knows what they believe; they have submitted their thinking to an authority which is reinforced by regimented discourse, rituals and signaling. Horrifying.
The equation of right beliefs with moral virtue that permeates PEPism seems to me to mirror the protestant doctrine of sola fide. In both cases it is not what you do that matters, merely what you think ... which can be verified by others only on the basis of what you say.
Considering that PEPism arose in a cultural milieu originally shaped by protestants, this might not be surprising; that said, I don't know if the Puritans believed this as well as the Lutherans.
“The loyalty and coordination advantages of adherence to a common belief system is why autocracies reliant on mining wealth (silver, oil, etc) for revenue have tended to be overtly religious.”
Would you please clarify the connection between extractive industries and religion? Why is religious belief a reliable indicator of loyalty and why is loyalty more important in, say, the petroleum industry than in pharmaceuticals?
Certainly, people working in extractive industries should be immune to the woke “religion.” No miner will live very long if he believes that explosives and heavy earth moving equipment are nothing more than disembodied words relating only to other words rather than to physical things. The on-the-job life of an underground miner is an endless series of reality tests.
More brilliance here - Selecting for conformity - removing character as a selection issue is an evolutionary process that makes our world an ever shittier place
I enjoyed this but is wanders around a bit too much IMHO. I think it's worthwhile to place wokeism in the line of religion and beliefs. I suspect societies that become too woke may lead to less science as did Islam where anybody creative must be shunned for their inability to perceive truth as defined by a group. OTOH, while the Sauds supported all those schools to appease opposition they clearly seek to use their natural wealth to become even more wealthy, not quite in line with fundamental Islam. In the US the current administration seems intent on doing the opposite by adopting the religion of climate and some wokery.
Looking forward to more thought provoking articles.
From note 2: "Post-Enlightenment Progressivism (“wokery”) is more hostile to Christianity."
The irony of course, is that wokery is fundamentally Christian in its values. Christians believed in equality, but it was equality of souls, equality before God. Christians did not believe (as nobody believes) that people are equal in life, nor that they can be made equal. Woke is what happens when the instinct of equality, cultivated over two thousand years, loses its belief in God. Nietzsche warned of this very thing over 100 years ago. Yet Nietzsche appears to have had little effect on the culture of atheists and secularists.
Marxism is rather obviously Judeao-Xtianity with the awkard "God" bit dropped. See Acts 5 1-11 "... and a great fear fell over the whole church."
Xtianity: "Gives us all your money, or we'll murder you." Marxism: "Gives us all your money, or we'll murder you."
Xtianity was invented because Judaiasm wasn't working; Protestantism was invented because Catholicism wasn't working; Marxism was invented because Protestantism wasn't working; Critical Theory because Marxism wasn't working...
Right on down to 'Woke'.
Same playbook for the same metaphysical utopian gobbledy gook. Can we stop playing into these dolts hands? Marxism isn't 'spheshul' or different to be bracketed off as somehow 'different'. Before WWII Communism; Fascism; and Nazism were recognised as 'Left': all socialisms, just with different specifics for their hate.
Then an evil magic was worked.
Let's just stop it, eh? 'Cos you KNOW they'll just spin off another bullshit when this latest iteration goes to the wall as we see through otherwise.
Yet another great article, thanks.
NS Lyons quotes Lasch (paraphrasing) on the postmodern “belief” that “reality is a social construct”.
So, setting aside the issue of God, to the extent that “woke” is postmodernist and holds that “belief”, it is a quasi religious, dogmatic cult that is as conformist and anti-rational (ILLIBERAL) as traditional mythic-renunciate religion.
There are a number of social scientists (Musa Al-Gharbi, Keith Preston) that have pointed out that “woke” is the quasi religion of one of three factions of the power elites, the globalist tech oligarchs (virtual property owners), who are in an unholy alliance with finance capitalism, against manufacturing capitalism (physical property owners).
So, the left-vs-right narrative has yielded to virtual-vs-physical. “Woke” virtuals intend to reduce the traditional working classes to the status of peasants under neo-feudalism (Kotkin) , subverting “classically liberal” Constitutional order.
In other words, the globalist $billionaire funded “woke” “left” does indeed want to subjugate the working and lower middle class3s, destroying democracy and western civilization.
And that is possible because the legacy sense-making system, modern rationalism, WEIRD, is failing because it is fragile to techno-economic disruption of its hierarchies of curated expertise. Network information flows around legacy hierarchies, leading to an InfoGlut and loss of social trust.
Without high-social-trust, western civilization collapses into the tribalistic , totalitarian (ILLIBERAL) modes of social order.
The other aspect of belief-determining-worthiness is that (except through honest interaction) what a subject actually believes cannot be determined by another. Requiring a priesthood whose purpose is to define and shape belief - what to believe but also how to believe.
This colonization of the mind results in someone who never really knows what they believe; they have submitted their thinking to an authority which is reinforced by regimented discourse, rituals and signaling. Horrifying.
The equation of right beliefs with moral virtue that permeates PEPism seems to me to mirror the protestant doctrine of sola fide. In both cases it is not what you do that matters, merely what you think ... which can be verified by others only on the basis of what you say.
Considering that PEPism arose in a cultural milieu originally shaped by protestants, this might not be surprising; that said, I don't know if the Puritans believed this as well as the Lutherans.
Lorenzo carries this blog
“The loyalty and coordination advantages of adherence to a common belief system is why autocracies reliant on mining wealth (silver, oil, etc) for revenue have tended to be overtly religious.”
Would you please clarify the connection between extractive industries and religion? Why is religious belief a reliable indicator of loyalty and why is loyalty more important in, say, the petroleum industry than in pharmaceuticals?
Certainly, people working in extractive industries should be immune to the woke “religion.” No miner will live very long if he believes that explosives and heavy earth moving equipment are nothing more than disembodied words relating only to other words rather than to physical things. The on-the-job life of an underground miner is an endless series of reality tests.