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What can we learn about optimal cultural leadership in light of the 2013-2021 social justice period?
Religious leaders did not adequately stand up against the mass movement. Although many conservatives see value in religious institutions as a cultural defense, mainstream Catholicism and Protestant denominations did not substantively address the social justice craze. In some cases they placated or even promoted it.
Academics did not adequately argue against the mass movement. It is not the case, for instance, that the experts in western history, literature, or philosophy were more likely to argue against the mass movement in any substantive way. This is problematic: if learning the best of western culture does not lead to protecting said culture in any genuine sense when it matters the most, then how great is the actual utility of such learning?
The main “public critics” of the period have little in common except that they were passionate and somewhat neurotic men. Yarvin, Peterson, Weinstein, Scott Adams(?). My memory of who was most dominant in this period is somewhat hazy, maybe someone with a better memory can correct me. There were more psychologists among critics than philosophers. You had people like Stefan Molyneux passionately criticizing the proto-movement well before its zenith. His Twitter attests to his neuroticism.
Random people online were able to sense a threat that leading experts weren’t able to sense, and made arguments that leading academics did not make. Why?
It’s difficult to come away with clear takeaways. IMO: (1) it is beneficial to increase anonymous discussion, as this laid the groundwork for future criticism, and allowed for arguments to spread which would otherwise be banned. (2) It may be essential to increase the number of passionate and neurotic men, over men with other skills, as the major critics were more often passionate and somewhat crazy. A “passionate” temperament is occasionally inaccurate, and may result in behavior that leads institutions to weed them out — but their utility in sensing and addressing threats compensates for the occasional bout of craziness.
There is a funny review of Jordan Peterson from 2013, possibly the first time anyone commented about his personality online. It was made on the anonymous literature board of 4chan in 2013, long before his rise to fame.
Editing for clarity
The question is geared toward users who believe that wokeness constituted a threat — to institutions, America, truth, etc. I suppose there are some users who do not believe that wokeness was a threat. I can’t recall seeing such a comment in years on this forum, but if you’re such a user, you are of course welcome to comment and critique in any way that you’d like. Feel free to comment on the premise, the points, a tangent.
Why were the individuals leading the fight against wokeness outside of the traditional framework of understanding and designating cultural authority? The study of philosophy, the study of history, the study of great works, the study and authority of religion — these things did not create any of the influential “fighters” publicly arguing against wokeness. If they couldn’t detect, grasp, and eliminate the threat, then how important should we consider these pursuits and domains? Why did they fail when they were needed? Are these pursuits less valuable in moral formation than generally conceived? Many conservatives believe that these mainstays of Western education are important to study; yet the students of these were impotent against the threat. There are conservatives who studied these, and who teach these.
”Institutional capture” doesn’t factor in here because there are non-woke members of these domains, perhaps a few percent or a few tens of percents, but none of them were to be found among the influential critics of wokeness.
It appears to me that temperament played a larger role than anything else in deciding who was instrumental in tackling the threat. Do you agree? Do you disagree? From Peterson to Musk, the great “defenders” against it were passionate and somewhat crazy personalities. They cried publicly. They had strange personal lives. If that’s the case, should temperament be considered a greater deal in the selection of authority?
I think this clarifies. There’s a mismatch between “the study of Western things leads to great moral conduct!” and the reality of how everyone behaved during a mass movement which veered toward moral hysteria. “Traditional education” did not avail anything. This is interesting, provided of course that you agree with the premise.
I think this depends on whether you are judging from the perspective of Christian conservatives or secular ones. If you are a secular conservative hoping to see the churches hold back the woke tide, you are going to be disappointed; we no longer have that kind of influence. Secular old-school liberals may see it as more of a mixed bag, but many of them seem to suffer from the same misunderstanding.
I can't speak to the experience of the last few years within Catholicism, as I am not a Roman Catholic. But I think that any proper understanding will have to start from the realization that the Roman Catholic church is in practice a very big tent and it is necessary to distinguish movements within it.
As an evangelical, though, I can say that evangelical churches did often address this internally. My pastor, whom I would describe as a moderate social conservative, talked about the dangers of the woke movement quite a lot. Evangelical groups produced a lot of woke defectors (or ideological refugees, to be more generous) during this period, demonstrating that wokeness was being vigorously rejected in the bodies they left. But external advocacy was indeed more selective, reflecting a need to pick our battles.
The mainline went woke, yes. They've been progressive for a very long time. But what may not be visible from the media coverage is that they are also dying.
Anyway, I think it's too early to hold a postmortem of the woke movement. It's still very much alive and kicking.
The RCC, excepting perhaps the most liberal fringes, was generally very anti-trans consistently throughout the period; beyond that the Francis pontificate was basically a cold civil war(which came very very close to going hot, more than once) that kept the guns pointed at each other and sucked the oxygen out of the room.
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