Start with a bunch of excerpts.
The rise of woke politics, and the urgent need to defeat it, has made strange bedfellows of all of us in the new conservative coalition.
A strategy of seeking total victory over cultural Marxism, in any case, gives it too much credit. It overlooks how intellectually feeble it already is. Cultural Marxism is able to flourish today precisely because of hyperpartisanship. It appears strong only because it is a weapon clasped in the fist of ideological tyranny. In a more pluralist culture, it would have to defend itself against critics who do not share its premises, and it would soon find itself at a serious disadvantage. Cultural Marxists are good at policing their own ranks for unorthodoxy and exposing the hidden power-relations that sustain (as they wrongly think) all non-Marxist structures of thought. They are not good at finding common premises with non-Marxists, and therefore at constructing arguments with universal validity. But in politics, constructing arguments with universal validity is what we call seeking the common good.
it isn’t hard to understand why only 15% of those under 30 think the U.S. is the greatest nation on earth, why nearly half believe hard work is no guarantor of success, or why so many of them support a single national health-care program—and Bernie Sanders for president.
4. Reacting to the recent European National Conservatism Conference, Titus Techera writes,
From this political point of view, intellectuals are supposed to fulfill a negative, defensive role: To protect reasonable politics from the attacks of elite institutions, especially in Brussels, but it’s not obvious whether intellectuals who want to discredit the EU as such and transform Europe could retain the necessary enthusiasm and urgency playing for what might seem like low stakes. They certainly don’t seem to have a future in government, where, Orbán stressed, the economy comes first.
(Jim Hoft gives a more complete, matter-of-fact report on the conference.)
My comments on these:
1. I agree with Klavan that those of us who oppose the religious/cult version of contemporary leftism should focus on that issue. For now, we ought to sweep under the rug our differences about free-market economics, Donald Trump, and the social issues that Klavan discusses.
2. Although Hankins’ essay overall is the best of the bunch, the quoted excerpt is the one with which I am least in agreement. The religious/cult version of contemporary leftism may look feeble intellectually, but its political power on college campuses is formidable. The administrative apparatus set up to enforce it is going to be around for a long time. Not so the professors who would stand for reason rather than religion, most of whom will retire over the next 15 years. I think that intellectual detente is possible between those of us on the right and those who are on the non-religious left. But we do have to inflict a long-lasting defeat on the religion/cult.
3. Galston is an interesting figure to watch. Earlier this year, he fretted over Sanders’ potential to drive away voters in November. I see this more recent column as the mirror image of a conservative writing “Donald Trump would not be my choice, but I understand where his supporters are coming from.” In any case, his analysis of polling data showing Sanders’ strong support among young people is quite sobering. Can we speculate on how a Sanders victory in November might affect the religious cult? It would give the cult a more sympathetic figure in the White House, and that seems dangerous. But it might dissipate some of the cult’s energy. In particular, in the absence of the Trump bogeyman, the non-religious left might be tempted to assert itself.
4. Techera speculates on the proper role for conservative intellectuals. He suggests that it is “negative, defensive,” and this may not be very motivating. Progressive ideology offers the intellectual a higher-status part to play, that of helping rulers enact and implement activist policies. And the religious cult offers intellectuals a role that is even higher status yet, that of stamping out heresy and punishing sinners.
I would suggest that conservative intellectuals worry a bit less about politics and a bit more about the hold of the religious cult on campus. To me, the situation at the major institutions of higher education looks hopeless. We need some alternative prestige hierarchy in which reason is given a higher value than religion.
Sanders is woke?
To explain, for Sanders, it seems that class and economics are his primary concerns and way of understanding the world, not race or gender. Therefore he is anti-woke. Which might explain why so many people complain about “Bernie Bros”.
Sanders isn’t ‘anti-woke.’ He may be superficially less ‘woke me than some other candidates, but I think it’s worth noting that the ‘wokest’ people seem to be rallying behind Sanders rather than Warren or Buttigieg or Klobuchar, it’s worth noting.
Many socialists today do disdain aspects of ‘woke’ culture, but we’d be mistaken for taking this as evidence of dissent; it’s rather disagreement over what’s most important. Sanders-supporting socialists I’ve known are every bit as much radical feminists and ‘racial justice’ enthusiasts as anyone else, they just think class warfare takes precedence over other issues. It’s a mistake for people on the right (or just the non-left) to think there’s real common ground with the ‘Bernie bro’ crowd. They don’t fundamentally disagree with ‘wokeness’ so much as they just view it as ‘leftism lite.’
The CoWoken have risen. The Conservative Woken (CoWoken) aim to conserve Western values, in both the moral and economic sense. Bernie Sanders is not big on the oppression obsessed Woke but they are big on him. Bernie Chavez is BIG on Economic Exploitation and the result of this obsession is Venezuela. All classical liberals predicted the direction, if not the devastating scale, of Chavismo; don’t let history repeat.
Bend the Knee, as Tyler Cowen has. The current Mirror-Mirror-on-the-Wall president may be dangerous but he is easily distracted by his own reflection. The Shining City on the Hill must not follow Venezuela’s downward spiral.
It’s UNbelievable, INconceivable (and I know what that word means), that reasonable young people can believe in Socialism, today, with Venezuela as a real-life, Sanders supported model.
Therefore, I’m sure the young believers are, like Sanders, NOT reasonable.
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.
-W.H. Auden
“For now, we ought to sweep under the rug our differences about free-market economics, Donald Trump, and the social issues that Klavan discusses.”
—-
Woke politics is a primitive view of the dynamics of social fairness. I am almost 60, and saw much of the same thing when I went to college, but it is taking on a different scale and tone now. Our parent’s generation showed us a different view, informed by powerful recent lessons of history. We mostly figured it out.
I am much more worried about my generation’s revulsion for Woke politics, and its moral failure in teaching the next generation a more realistic and moral view. We had a template for working this out intergenerationally and we threw it away.
Instead, we have the pathetic reaction embodied by the Trump Presidency; a sneering, disrespectful dismissal that does nothing to teach the next generation much of anything other than that politics is a mud fight. This is our generation’s response. This is the lesson we are leaving behind about what fairness has to be. Do we expect this to change minds? No, we want to sweep it under the rug.
Shouldn’t it be our generation’s responsibility to impart a more complete understanding of fairness and to come to a rough social consensus about what it means? Of what we can and can’t do about it? We need to win the arguments and let our behavior provide a convincing example. Isn’t this our fault?
Instead we whine endlessly about how stupid and venal the young woke crowd is, and we do nothing to show them how they could do better pursuing a different approach. We are afraid of them. We are failing.
I agree wholeheartedly but there is a choice to be made in 2020. Your keen insight should be translated into an action plan to right the ship in 2024 but there is an emergency on deck today that is more pressing than the slow changing list to port.
OK, but what is your emergency plan?
Join the CoWoken. Swallow the bile and BendTheKnee to Donald J. Trump. United we stand, divided we will succumb to the Woke and their leader Bernie Chavez.
I’m sorry, but you don’t seem to get it. Trump amplifies wokeness, and anti-wokeness. If your goal is to knock down progressivism, you should worry about Trump more than Bernie.
You cannot defeat wokeness by punching it out of the next generation. You can only do it by doing the work – winning the arguments and by governing successfully.
Sanders does not have what Trump has. He can’t ruthlessly control the Democratic caucus like Trump does with the Republicans. He will fail to do what he wants to do. Electing him is bad, but it is not as bad as electing Trump.
Nope. I get it. Tyler Cowen gets it. Arnold Kling gets it. If it was Joe Biden vs. Donald J. Trump then I’d be right with you. But the Woke have (or are about to) anoint Bernie Chavez as their candidate and Woke + Chavizmo == DISASTER.
It is a time for pithy and sticky messages. I hate marketing but it works. I BendTheKnee. I am CoWoken. Worry about constraining Donald the Lame Duck in Jan 2021 but stop Woke Chavizmo in November.
YouTube 50 sec clip: The Lesser of Two Weevils
Humor helps… I do understand and respect your position, Tom. The logic, of course, works both ways but Weevils are Weevils.
“Bend the knee…”
El…oh…el…
I do see people trying to do some of what you say.
“WALKING THE WALK: Why Donald Trump Courts Black Americans. “Donald Trump did not need black voters to win in 2016 and does not need us this year. So why does he help and support black Americans? Why does he want us on the Trump Train? President Trump knows this, but he still keeps reaching out to fellow Americans who are black. Why? I think I have an answer. What do all of these newly-freed former prisoners – white, black, brown, etc. – have in common besides being mostly non-violent offenders? It’s this: they all hit bottom and are determined to climb back up; they are intent on becoming better people than the persons they were. More often than not, someone saw their efforts and gave them a hand up. They are all looking to improve themselves the right way. That’s a very American trait which President Trump appreciates.”
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/359236/
“We are delighted to be joined as well by dozens of Indian women entrepreneurs who are helping to build your nation’s future. They are great and natural entrepreneurs, and I just say to you men: Be very careful — they’re really good!”
“Trump gets criticized for being “divisive” and “polarizing,” but I think he sees greatness as the product of competition. I said at the end of the first post of the day, riffing on a quote by Rabindranath Tagore about Swami Vivekananda: “If you want to know America, study Donald Trump. In him everything is positive and nothing negative.” For him, us versus them is not a bad thing. It’s a sport. It’s all for the good. It’s competition. It’s the source of achievement.
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2020/02/in-india-trump-stirs-up-competition-of.html
The religious/cult version of contemporary leftism may look feeble intellectually, but its political power on college campuses is formidable.
We’ve been soaking in an acid bath of liberalism since the Founding, and now nearly all the connective tissue has dissolved. The problem isn’t that the political left is so formidable, but that it has no ambulatory opponents.
No one is going to mount the barricades to fight for blind meritocracy and procedural neutrality. Our (really your) team is bloodless and uninspiring.
Professors, highly paid with huge tax-based benefits, were supposed to be those folks who would fight for blind meritocracy and procedural neutrality.
But the Gramscian march has had them secretly discriminating against Reps for decades. So there are almost no Reps left among professors, and almost none getting hired.
“Not so the professors who would stand for reason rather than religion, most of whom will retire over the next 15 years.”
Retire, or get driven out/lynched by the administration and their coworkers. I don’t think the key issue is the retirements so much as the active attacks against heresy in the academy.
Bah! So conservatives — particular conservatives with academic credentials — are terrified by “wokenness” and he hordes of classroom-disrupting grenade-throwing leftists who refuse to acknowledge innate sexual distinctions. And this is the most important issue of the day! of perhaps all time! We NEED Donald Trump to protect us!
Must be something wrong with me, but I can’t help but think a real university professor discussing sex and gender would provide a little more nuance — some statistics, some history, some discussion of moral issues. Wikipedia manages to do this, for example at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment. Why can’t the Claremont Institute?
Arnold writes: “We need some alternative prestige hierarchy in which reason is given a higher value than religion.”
Idea:
1. Set up tiny Intellectual Fight Club at 50 top colleges. Like Fight Club in that it’s secret and has prestige (with the discontented).
2. Only 5 student pairs are allowed to join from any college. All pairs must be one from the right and one from the “non-religious” (in Kling sense) left. So all 10 embrace Reason.
3. Those 10 get coveted, secret access to Intellectual Pairs (same make-up as the students), a mix of mostly online and occasional in-person “dinner party” style debates or intellectual discussions.
4. Imagine 50 adult pairs. Arnold and TK, for example. Mickey Kaus and Robert Wright. Etc.
They’re willing to do 1 such event per month indefinitely. So over the course of a school year, each student gets one salon per month. A lovely experience.
The events always have to be tiny, small enough to really feel like a conversation. Each kid needs to talk a few different times, and have the enjoyment of one of the 2 adults actually responding.
5. Make it exclusive to start, tiny. Wow, couldn’t you imagine a line out the door of college kids who’d want to join that club? 10 kids in the whole college?
6. 500 kids at 50 colleges is small. Yes.
But then once the seed is planted, the founding students have a new job. They need to try to organize some of these “paired” events in homegrown style.
Pull in a professor who believes in Reason but perhaps are afraid to formally join Heterodox Academy.
Prof would not fear dinner with 10 students. Have him/her grab a more conservative colleague and now the program can grow at that college. Maybe a second group of 10 can join. Maybe an early adherent could open a chapter as a grad student at a new campus.
7. Of course some student would want to try to weaponize such discussions. I’m not sure how to address that.
Online, one could imagine that the identities of the students could be hidden: you could hear them audibly or just see their text, but not see them. That seems weird.
Or you could steer clear of race and gender as topics. Those would presumably be the Gotcha topics.
Best new idea I’ve read in a couple of years about this issue.
Thanks Tom G.
– Mike G.
Time to burn down the tax-advantages of any college that has been discriminating against Reps in their hiring decisions. Which is most of them. Or, perhaps more politically feasible, end all tax-support to all colleges, including tax-exempt status.
The Fed gov’t should be starting to create more clear non-college credential tests for reasoning ability, rather than merely accept “accredited college” graduate as enough.
The wokeness is a result of accepted prior discrimination against hiring Republicans or other pro-life professors and administrators.
If you’re really seeking to balance politics at universities, you ought to insist that engineering and management faculties and maybe seminaries get rid of their excess Republicans. Also, places like Bob Jones and Liberty University should be compelled to hire some Buddhists and agnostics. As for a proper level of pro-life sentiment, should that be determined by polling the general public or counting heads at the Supreme Court?