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Paul Graham is out today with an essay about the origins of woke. There's nothing in the essay that's particularly new. Did he know about Richard Hanania's book? Did Hanania know that perhaps his book would be better as an essay?
In any case, I think the better topic would be this:
How did wokeness die?
Of course, wokeness isn't dead. Far from it. But the vibe shift is real, and I think it's pretty fair to say that wokeness did peak in 2020/21 and is in serious retreat now. Paul Graham kinda glosses over the reason for its decline, saying:
But I'm not sure this really explains it. As the social movement known as wokeness gained power, it was able to get more and more people placed into high-ranking positions. Governments, universities, and big corporations all have what are essentially commissars who are given high-paying jobs to enforce orthodoxy. At first, wokeness was just true believers. But pretty soon it gained adherents who did it for practical reasons – they put their pronouns in their bios because their jobs literally depended on it. It seems like a self-reinforcing cycle. Once woke people get more power, they make demands which include hiring even more woke people, giving them more power, etc... Anyone who speaks out is banished from the organization.
There's no limiting principle here. Other social movements, like Christianity, grew and grew until they took over essentially all institutions. Why couldn't wokeness do the same?
Here's my attempt at an explanation.
Wokeness is ultimately like cancer. It grows but it can not thrive because it destroys the institutions it corrupts. Scott talked about how whales should in theory get cancer more readily than smaller animals. A blue whale has 3,000 times as many cells as a human. Each one could theoretically become cancerous. So why aren't blue whales riddled with cancer at a rate 3,000 times that of humans?
Scott's theory: cancer cells are unstable, and the cancer cells themselves get cancer, preventing the malignancy from growing. It's a rare cancer that grows quickly but is stable enough to not implode.
I can't comment on the accuracy of this biological model, but as an analogy for social movements it works well. Early Christianity grew without limit because it was fruitful. Wokeness died because it was toxic. Today, the left is famous for its circular firing squads in which people are excommunicated for the smallest breaches of orthodoxy. Ultimately, this was its fatal flaw. It couldn't coordinate action against its enemies because it was so obsessed with killing its own.
What is wokeness, specifically?
I think this is the canonical response to this line of argument.
"Please Just Fucking Tell Me What Term I Am Allowed to Use for the Sweeping Social and Political Changes You Demand, you don't get to insist that no one talks about your political project and it's weak and pathetic that you think you do"? Or is it "the basic stance of the social justice set, for a long time now, has been that they are 100% exempt from ordinary politics." Who is "they"?
The Cathedral is good reading. https://graymirror.substack.com/p/a-brief-explanation-of-the-cathedral
Inability to accurately specify "they" is not a gotcha, it is like this by design. Everyone knows that "they" will get you for saying the wrong thing, it doesn't matter who "they" are. You may not be able to name the lawyer who enacts lawfare against you, or the company he's on retainer for, but humans intuitively understand that they are frequently set against a vast, unaccountable memespace egregore that undergoes regular software updates to set itself against others.
The canonical response above is expressing frustration with the inability to accurately name this phenomenon of Cathedral-driven social change, because being able to name it is a weakness. Don't worry too much about social justice- within a few years the Cathedral will start shifting the other way. We're already starting to see signs.
The very beginning of the article define "The Cathedral" as "journalism plus academia". That's pretty specific to me. In fact I scrolled further and found even more specifically "Harvard, Yale, the Times and the Post". In your own example, you listed a line of bureaucracy from lawyers to lawfare to companies.
However I am going to assume you are also implying that even if the article is not being specific, your definition of the Cathedral still holds. Your second claim that "everyone knows that "they" will get you" is consensus building. Who is "everyone"? Does that include me?
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