I know this is blasphemy and defeatism, and it won't stop me enjoying the exploration of ideas so kindly furnished, but I sometimes wonder whether the intellectual demolition of fashionable attitudes is no more than an interesting exercise and diversion for those of us with enquiring minds and a respect for truth. For it is - as we all well know - all but impossible to win an argument on its merits. No matter how logical, how amply provided with evidence, how orderly the thought, people with no understanding, no respect and no desire for truth will mob together and continue to behave badly, overcome by their emotions and sense of false righteousness, ad infinitum eternitamque
I’ve got a strategy for you. Three words: Stop doing that!
Anybody else thinking that?
I hate this entire situation in which the world finds itself and it is self-generated defeatism, pure and simple. Also it means 1. I have no choice but to subscribe, read, think and expand, which inevitably is work, despite my inherent laziness and preference for fiction; 2. The oppositional forces that started it must also be convinced or otherwise defeated, which is even more work.
I wish us all good fortune. Prepare for absolute exhaustion.
Folk generally cannot be reasoned out of beliefs they were not reasoned into. Which is why these essays, while they discuss ideas as ideas have consequences, are generally more focused precisely on those consequences and the social utility of the ideas to those adopting and propagating them. That is as schemas (patterns of belief) generating scripts (patterns of action). De-railing those strategies is much more likely to be effective than trying to reason folk out of beliefs they were not reasoned into and which generate status and social leverage strategies to the benefit of the adopters and propagators.
Very true all that. And it's not just people with "no understanding". It gets worse than that....people for whom the real acid test of a belief is not "is it true" but "will it make me FEEL GOOD". And then there's emotional catharsis....the delicious business of finding someone or something to HATE.
"Farming was first developed by women, as they dominated the gathering of plants. Unless and until societies shifted to using ploughs, women dominated farming labour."
It is so interesting what different things we all gather from what we know as history. I take a more anthropological view. Women were as important as men in farming but it is short sighted to make this statement. There is no evidence that women "dominated the gathering of plants" or that they did not "man" ploughs. There is evidence however of the warlike dominance of European Anatolian farmers. The constant need for more land and ownership of land meant the extinction of the hunter gatherers in Europe. Interesting is the role of modern Mitochondrial DNA to the European hunter gatherers. Here is just a bit of my view of history.
Women dominated low-risk foraging because they usually had children in tow. That might include gathering shellfish and hunting lizards, but it definitely meant they dominated the gathering of plants. This is a repeated pattern in foraging societies.
Men (and women without children in tow) dominated higher-risk foraging, so hunting large animals and gathering honey. (In Ancient Egypt, men did the laundry because you did that on the river bank and, well, crocodiles.)
The only place I am aware of where women regularly plough is in some African societies where they are making the transition from hoe farming (which women dominate) to plough farming. So, farming is still predominantly coded as women’s work. Also, African societies do a lot of “farming out” of kids as a risk-dispersal mechanism, so it is easier not to have children in tow.
There are lots of disadvantages in remaining in the continent where we evolved. There are so many more pathogens, parasites, predators and mega herbivores that co-evolved with, and so can cope with, us. We did much better outside Africa, where we were vermin (i.e. an introduced species) so could occupy lots of habitats and drive not-used-to-us species to extinction.
The problem with ploughing and kids is (1) control of animals and (2) have to be very systematic in a way that being interrupted by children is not helpful. Plough societies overwhelmingly have men as presumptive landowners. (The main exception is the Mosuo of China, who do not recognise fatherhood, uncles provide male parenting, so inheritance has to be female line.)
Pastoralism is overwhelmingly patrilineal kin groups since men own the animals (because herd them without the small kids in tow) and you needed effective (mostly male) warrior teams to defend the mobile assets. (There is one African society that has taken up pastoralism and is in the process of shifting from matrilineal to patrilineal.) But pastoralism evolved after farming, so does not tell us much about the forager-farmer transition. (The only animals domesticated by foragers were dogs, horses and reindeer.)
Brown’s classic “note” has since been vindicated by subsequent studies.
Thanks for your reply. This is all interesting and one way to look at it. History, like any other discipline, is highly open to interpretation. It is also vastly more complex than it appears. There is quite a bit of new anthropology focusing on the hunter gatherer transition. I will provide this link soon. Interesting duscussion.
I have no idea if engaging across the divide can be useful, but just in case anyone is interested:
When you begin your essay series talking like a Hollywood villain... you're actually being a villain. This whole "political polarisation" thing that people love to complain about? You're doing it right here. When you say that the woke can't be compromised with, and assume that they are all being insincere, that's you being part of the problem.
Perhaps you just want to play to an audience that already agrees with you, in which case, I will wander off and mind my own business. But if you're ever interested in persuading those who don't agree... this is not the way to go about it.
Let see: they attempt to destroy careers, reputations, businesses, drive people out public spaces, always have another set of demands …
They are social imperialists using a status strategy and social leverage strategies that define dissent as illegitimate. As in, for instance, if you are not “anti-racist” as defined, you are racist.
Listen to folk who were raised in the Soviet Union or the Soviet bloc. They will tell you how familiar this all is.
BTW, I am not saying or implying they are insincere. What they do would not work nearly as well if they did not believe it. Status strategies need not be consciously calculated and often aren’t. We Homo sapiens are excellent at moralising and rationalising our self interest.
The “woke“ are essentially re-running the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. Particularly with their institutional capture strategies. Tell me, how did “negotiating” with the Christians work out for the pagans?
Thanks for the replies. I think you've answered my question: you're too angry to engage in dialogue right now. I mean... that's alright. Rant away. Ranting is good.
In the meantime, though, as someone who is instinctively a progressive person, I'm writing you off. Your anger is fine, and valid. But it's not without consequences. The consequences are, I'm not going to wade through your essays to try to understand you, because you're just another reactionary muppet yelling into the void.
Good luck with that. When you're ready to talk, we'll still be here. Progressives ('the woke' if you like) aren't going away.
I don’t worship expanding human knowledge and capacity, I appreciate it. China provides an analytical foil, a civilisation not all based on any form of monotheism.
I think the question was directed at "Phil H", but given threading is broken in substack at the moment I could be wrong (and it certainly isn't obvious who is responding to whom).
Correct! Also i think it would do Phil a service to read about weimer Germany. That or the French revolution reminds me of what we have now, maybe the cultural revolution also, but history or "progress" is not a straight line. Usually obnoxious causes lead to a massive backlash.
Your question seems a bit odd to me. Right out of the gate: you seem to be implying that if someone (or some country) disagrees with me, then I shouldn't be interested in them? That sounds like a horrible and limiting way to be.
I'm interested in China because I live here, and my wife and children are Chinese - that's obviously by far the most important reason. Also, China is objectively a big and important part of the world; also it's intrinsically fascinating. But clearly, I love it because it's home.
I think you're trying to suggest that China is not progressive, but China is where most of the poverty reduction of the last 40 years has happened. It's a country in which my wife's parents went from the verge of starvation to comfortable middle-class urban life. It's a country that successfully teaches the world's hardest writing system to ~50 million kids every year in an attempt to escape poverty. That blinds college admission with the very explicit intent of levelling the playing field to make sure the rich don't monopolise higher education.
There are lots of regressive attitudes and problems in China, of course. It's a big, complex place. But my little corner of it is a gorgeous subtropical paradise with mango trees on the streets and millions of people enjoying newfound wealth. It's a privilege and an inspiration to live here.
I don't think complaining does anything. Complaining has been going on across multiple continents for multiple decades - or even centuries, depending how you define Wokeness.
I will say that I'm skeptical that Marxism plays a major role in the origin of Wokeness, but I can't argue with the fact that Marxism has been around, and in one form or another, it clearly does influence politics even today.
I have trouble believing this. The *kind* of people in each movement are different. I know everyone tends to think that left/right politics forms a single enduring axis of political values, but there's more to values than left and right alone.
I say this because the goals, interests, and ultimately the *nature* of Wokeness are opposed to the essence of Marxism. Can you imagine Marx, Trotsky, or Lenin having any interest in the modern Woke program? Those guys were unapolagetically *racist;* see for example https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/05/10/ugly-racism-karl-marx/
Where Marxism was masculine, wokeness is feminine; where Marxism was hard-bitten, Wokeness is spoiled; where Marxism was economic, Wokeness is social; where Marxism was atheistic, wokeness is *religious.* Psychologically speaking, I think the modern Woke have more to do with prohibitionists, wowsers, and Bible-thumpers than with the hard left - they remind me of the original followers of Jesus Christ.
Mar 6, 2023·edited Mar 6, 2023Liked by Lorenzo Warby
If that's your take, then, why look at Marxism? Wouldn't you rather be seeking its roots within the feminist movement?
But honestly I'm not convinced that's right either; men are definitely capable of a morally-driven mindset. The Woke's condemnation of the moral fabric of society has echoes in the Cathar condemnation of creation and abnegation of biology, or in the gender-bending passages of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
What I mean here is that the psychological mindset of Wokeness was always basically around; in the past, my assumption is that it was an excellent counterweight to the kind of cruel pragmatism that tends to pervade times and places where inequality is seen as a legitimising force; the people who are Woke today would have been great in Pharaonic Egypt, and probably are great in modern Russia. They've just become so powerful in the modern West, and been rewarded and encouraged so far beyond their usefulness to society that they're motivated to keep chasing the inequality boogeyman straight off of a cliff.
I'm really not in a hurry to resolve this disagreement, though; presumably I'll get a better sense of your own position as I continue reading.
Marxism matters because it speaks to the brokenness of the academy. A brokenness “wokery” aggravates, is a product of, but did not cause.
Marxism also matters because it feeds into “wokery”, through the link of Critical Theory. Particularly through Critical Pedagogy. Hence the importance of Marxism as a template.
And Feminism is a crucial link. As I will be exploring.
Any set of ideas that resonates sufficiently to replicate has to be feeding off human propensities. What we are dealing with is, however, fairly specific to Western civilisation.* Indeed, it really is, as Western thought so often is, a Christian heresy. Which is why “wokery” is particularly hostile to traditional Christianity while giving Islam a pass. The former is a direct rival in ways the latter is not.
*Though both Zoroastrianism and Buddhism produced analogues.
And I take your point on a strategy is needed, complaining is nowhere near enough. I am sure the Pagans complained about the Christians a lot. In fact, we know they did, as many of their complaints have survived. All their complaining availed them nought.
That's the plan, yes. We're hoping to be able to present a publisher with 5K subs and make it a fait accompli. We're currently nearly at 2K subs with 2/3 of the series to run.
These are the 3 legs the Woke Empire stool sits on.
One leg can be attacked.
The others not approached.
Its Not power or money.
The answer is war.
I’d like to say it’s a good thing we didn’t try to argue our way out with Hitler, except I have come to doubt that. For all their crimes they were not this, this is Jonestown at scale and we’re marching towards the nuclear war Kool Aide bowl.
You have no action plan, you have some new arguments.
I really enjoy this content (and Helen’s), written without the usual partisan tone and edge, but the vocabulary and sentence structure is so dense and scholarly, I’m not sure I have enough free time to read regularly. I can’t imagine how long it takes to research and write it.
I know this is blasphemy and defeatism, and it won't stop me enjoying the exploration of ideas so kindly furnished, but I sometimes wonder whether the intellectual demolition of fashionable attitudes is no more than an interesting exercise and diversion for those of us with enquiring minds and a respect for truth. For it is - as we all well know - all but impossible to win an argument on its merits. No matter how logical, how amply provided with evidence, how orderly the thought, people with no understanding, no respect and no desire for truth will mob together and continue to behave badly, overcome by their emotions and sense of false righteousness, ad infinitum eternitamque
No doubt he'll have more to say, but this is why Lorenzo has included a strategy chapter.
I’ve got a strategy for you. Three words: Stop doing that!
Anybody else thinking that?
I hate this entire situation in which the world finds itself and it is self-generated defeatism, pure and simple. Also it means 1. I have no choice but to subscribe, read, think and expand, which inevitably is work, despite my inherent laziness and preference for fiction; 2. The oppositional forces that started it must also be convinced or otherwise defeated, which is even more work.
I wish us all good fortune. Prepare for absolute exhaustion.
Folk generally cannot be reasoned out of beliefs they were not reasoned into. Which is why these essays, while they discuss ideas as ideas have consequences, are generally more focused precisely on those consequences and the social utility of the ideas to those adopting and propagating them. That is as schemas (patterns of belief) generating scripts (patterns of action). De-railing those strategies is much more likely to be effective than trying to reason folk out of beliefs they were not reasoned into and which generate status and social leverage strategies to the benefit of the adopters and propagators.
Also, thanks for the thoughtful comment, it provided the basis which I riffed off the announcement on my own substack.
https://lorenzofromoz.substack.com/p/the-worshipping-the-future-series
Very true all that. And it's not just people with "no understanding". It gets worse than that....people for whom the real acid test of a belief is not "is it true" but "will it make me FEEL GOOD". And then there's emotional catharsis....the delicious business of finding someone or something to HATE.
¡Por Dios, chico!
Let me carve a month out of my schedule to devote to this monster of a thesis ;-)
I look forward to every sentence.
The thesis captured nicely by HWFO 5GW https://hwfo.substack.com/p/dilemma-actions-in-fifth-generation
I do like HWFO’s work.
short version : wokism is a set of excuses developed within modern institutions to be used in office warfare and for expanding the institutions
right?
Basically, yes.
Great article. You write:
"Farming was first developed by women, as they dominated the gathering of plants. Unless and until societies shifted to using ploughs, women dominated farming labour."
It is so interesting what different things we all gather from what we know as history. I take a more anthropological view. Women were as important as men in farming but it is short sighted to make this statement. There is no evidence that women "dominated the gathering of plants" or that they did not "man" ploughs. There is evidence however of the warlike dominance of European Anatolian farmers. The constant need for more land and ownership of land meant the extinction of the hunter gatherers in Europe. Interesting is the role of modern Mitochondrial DNA to the European hunter gatherers. Here is just a bit of my view of history.
https://open.substack.com/pub/kwnorton/p/the-fears-of-the-ancestors-are-contagious?r=boqs0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Women dominated low-risk foraging because they usually had children in tow. That might include gathering shellfish and hunting lizards, but it definitely meant they dominated the gathering of plants. This is a repeated pattern in foraging societies.
Men (and women without children in tow) dominated higher-risk foraging, so hunting large animals and gathering honey. (In Ancient Egypt, men did the laundry because you did that on the river bank and, well, crocodiles.)
The only place I am aware of where women regularly plough is in some African societies where they are making the transition from hoe farming (which women dominate) to plough farming. So, farming is still predominantly coded as women’s work. Also, African societies do a lot of “farming out” of kids as a risk-dispersal mechanism, so it is easier not to have children in tow.
There are lots of disadvantages in remaining in the continent where we evolved. There are so many more pathogens, parasites, predators and mega herbivores that co-evolved with, and so can cope with, us. We did much better outside Africa, where we were vermin (i.e. an introduced species) so could occupy lots of habitats and drive not-used-to-us species to extinction.
The problem with ploughing and kids is (1) control of animals and (2) have to be very systematic in a way that being interrupted by children is not helpful. Plough societies overwhelmingly have men as presumptive landowners. (The main exception is the Mosuo of China, who do not recognise fatherhood, uncles provide male parenting, so inheritance has to be female line.)
Pastoralism is overwhelmingly patrilineal kin groups since men own the animals (because herd them without the small kids in tow) and you needed effective (mostly male) warrior teams to defend the mobile assets. (There is one African society that has taken up pastoralism and is in the process of shifting from matrilineal to patrilineal.) But pastoralism evolved after farming, so does not tell us much about the forager-farmer transition. (The only animals domesticated by foragers were dogs, horses and reindeer.)
Brown’s classic “note” has since been vindicated by subsequent studies.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/671420
Thanks for your reply. This is all interesting and one way to look at it. History, like any other discipline, is highly open to interpretation. It is also vastly more complex than it appears. There is quite a bit of new anthropology focusing on the hunter gatherer transition. I will provide this link soon. Interesting duscussion.
I really have nothing to say, but I can only heart this post once, so I'm also *commenting* that I love this post. This comment means super-heart
I have been spending some years working on a book on marriage down the ages, so this stuff is front and centre for me.
I have no idea if engaging across the divide can be useful, but just in case anyone is interested:
When you begin your essay series talking like a Hollywood villain... you're actually being a villain. This whole "political polarisation" thing that people love to complain about? You're doing it right here. When you say that the woke can't be compromised with, and assume that they are all being insincere, that's you being part of the problem.
Perhaps you just want to play to an audience that already agrees with you, in which case, I will wander off and mind my own business. But if you're ever interested in persuading those who don't agree... this is not the way to go about it.
Let see: they attempt to destroy careers, reputations, businesses, drive people out public spaces, always have another set of demands …
They are social imperialists using a status strategy and social leverage strategies that define dissent as illegitimate. As in, for instance, if you are not “anti-racist” as defined, you are racist.
Listen to folk who were raised in the Soviet Union or the Soviet bloc. They will tell you how familiar this all is.
BTW, I am not saying or implying they are insincere. What they do would not work nearly as well if they did not believe it. Status strategies need not be consciously calculated and often aren’t. We Homo sapiens are excellent at moralising and rationalising our self interest.
The “woke“ are essentially re-running the Christianisation of the Roman Empire. Particularly with their institutional capture strategies. Tell me, how did “negotiating” with the Christians work out for the pagans?
Thanks for the replies. I think you've answered my question: you're too angry to engage in dialogue right now. I mean... that's alright. Rant away. Ranting is good.
In the meantime, though, as someone who is instinctively a progressive person, I'm writing you off. Your anger is fine, and valid. But it's not without consequences. The consequences are, I'm not going to wade through your essays to try to understand you, because you're just another reactionary muppet yelling into the void.
Good luck with that. When you're ready to talk, we'll still be here. Progressives ('the woke' if you like) aren't going away.
Curious, why are you so interested in China? A society that rejects all of the "progress" you worship?
I don’t worship expanding human knowledge and capacity, I appreciate it. China provides an analytical foil, a civilisation not all based on any form of monotheism.
I think the question was directed at "Phil H", but given threading is broken in substack at the moment I could be wrong (and it certainly isn't obvious who is responding to whom).
Correct! Also i think it would do Phil a service to read about weimer Germany. That or the French revolution reminds me of what we have now, maybe the cultural revolution also, but history or "progress" is not a straight line. Usually obnoxious causes lead to a massive backlash.
Hi, Mr. House
Your question seems a bit odd to me. Right out of the gate: you seem to be implying that if someone (or some country) disagrees with me, then I shouldn't be interested in them? That sounds like a horrible and limiting way to be.
I'm interested in China because I live here, and my wife and children are Chinese - that's obviously by far the most important reason. Also, China is objectively a big and important part of the world; also it's intrinsically fascinating. But clearly, I love it because it's home.
I think you're trying to suggest that China is not progressive, but China is where most of the poverty reduction of the last 40 years has happened. It's a country in which my wife's parents went from the verge of starvation to comfortable middle-class urban life. It's a country that successfully teaches the world's hardest writing system to ~50 million kids every year in an attempt to escape poverty. That blinds college admission with the very explicit intent of levelling the playing field to make sure the rich don't monopolise higher education.
There are lots of regressive attitudes and problems in China, of course. It's a big, complex place. But my little corner of it is a gorgeous subtropical paradise with mango trees on the streets and millions of people enjoying newfound wealth. It's a privilege and an inspiration to live here.
> What is, again and again, lacking in critical explorations... is any serious sense of what we should do in response.
Yes, I agree! The last time I commented about this... https://societystandpoint.substack.com/p/the-irony-of-american-assimilation/comment/13163558 ...the response was essentially: Just complain! Complaining means doing something!
I don't think complaining does anything. Complaining has been going on across multiple continents for multiple decades - or even centuries, depending how you define Wokeness.
I will say that I'm skeptical that Marxism plays a major role in the origin of Wokeness, but I can't argue with the fact that Marxism has been around, and in one form or another, it clearly does influence politics even today.
Marxism provides a template that has continued. But most of the elements of Post-Enlightenment Progressivism are responses to the failures of Marxism.
I have trouble believing this. The *kind* of people in each movement are different. I know everyone tends to think that left/right politics forms a single enduring axis of political values, but there's more to values than left and right alone.
I say this because the goals, interests, and ultimately the *nature* of Wokeness are opposed to the essence of Marxism. Can you imagine Marx, Trotsky, or Lenin having any interest in the modern Woke program? Those guys were unapolagetically *racist;* see for example https://www.dailysignal.com/2017/05/10/ugly-racism-karl-marx/
Where Marxism was masculine, wokeness is feminine; where Marxism was hard-bitten, Wokeness is spoiled; where Marxism was economic, Wokeness is social; where Marxism was atheistic, wokeness is *religious.* Psychologically speaking, I think the modern Woke have more to do with prohibitionists, wowsers, and Bible-thumpers than with the hard left - they remind me of the original followers of Jesus Christ.
And what is the most obvious difference between c.1960 and c.2015? The massive feminisation of institutions.
“Wokery” is the first ideological wave where a large proportion of the theorists are female.
If that's your take, then, why look at Marxism? Wouldn't you rather be seeking its roots within the feminist movement?
But honestly I'm not convinced that's right either; men are definitely capable of a morally-driven mindset. The Woke's condemnation of the moral fabric of society has echoes in the Cathar condemnation of creation and abnegation of biology, or in the gender-bending passages of the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas.
What I mean here is that the psychological mindset of Wokeness was always basically around; in the past, my assumption is that it was an excellent counterweight to the kind of cruel pragmatism that tends to pervade times and places where inequality is seen as a legitimising force; the people who are Woke today would have been great in Pharaonic Egypt, and probably are great in modern Russia. They've just become so powerful in the modern West, and been rewarded and encouraged so far beyond their usefulness to society that they're motivated to keep chasing the inequality boogeyman straight off of a cliff.
I'm really not in a hurry to resolve this disagreement, though; presumably I'll get a better sense of your own position as I continue reading.
Marxism matters because it speaks to the brokenness of the academy. A brokenness “wokery” aggravates, is a product of, but did not cause.
Marxism also matters because it feeds into “wokery”, through the link of Critical Theory. Particularly through Critical Pedagogy. Hence the importance of Marxism as a template.
And Feminism is a crucial link. As I will be exploring.
Any set of ideas that resonates sufficiently to replicate has to be feeding off human propensities. What we are dealing with is, however, fairly specific to Western civilisation.* Indeed, it really is, as Western thought so often is, a Christian heresy. Which is why “wokery” is particularly hostile to traditional Christianity while giving Islam a pass. The former is a direct rival in ways the latter is not.
*Though both Zoroastrianism and Buddhism produced analogues.
And I take your point on a strategy is needed, complaining is nowhere near enough. I am sure the Pagans complained about the Christians a lot. In fact, we know they did, as many of their complaints have survived. All their complaining availed them nought.
I love the series. Are you going to publish it as a book?
That's the plan, yes. We're hoping to be able to present a publisher with 5K subs and make it a fait accompli. We're currently nearly at 2K subs with 2/3 of the series to run.
I will buy this book.
Power
Money
Cowardice
These are the 3 legs the Woke Empire stool sits on.
One leg can be attacked.
The others not approached.
Its Not power or money.
The answer is war.
I’d like to say it’s a good thing we didn’t try to argue our way out with Hitler, except I have come to doubt that. For all their crimes they were not this, this is Jonestown at scale and we’re marching towards the nuclear war Kool Aide bowl.
You have no action plan, you have some new arguments.
Power
Money
Cowardice
You can “action” only one.
This whole series needs to be an actual book, whether a physical book or a digital one.
We're working on it!
Can’t open essays 42 onwards. They’re not underlined / linked. My iPad, or a glitch?
I really enjoy this content (and Helen’s), written without the usual partisan tone and edge, but the vocabulary and sentence structure is so dense and scholarly, I’m not sure I have enough free time to read regularly. I can’t imagine how long it takes to research and write it.
A warning to me to strive to be more accessible.