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Argument: Hanania isn’t actually that good of a writer. Counter: neither is [insert popular trash here]. I’m not enough of a masochist to trawl the bestseller list and assess the quality, but I wouldn’t expect much.
Argument: Hanania isn’t that good of a salesman, and was ineffective at marketing his book. Selling a book is plausibly harder than writing it. As far as I know, most books don’t become best-sellers. Perhaps he failed to secure the big-name reviews or publicity stunts that could have catapulted it out of obscurity? Counter: not sure.
Argument: Hanania isn’t actually that good of a thinker, and has been rightfully rejected by discerning audiences. Counter: lol.
This is a joke, in that I don’t think the average book-purchaser is particularly discerning. It’s not a joke, in that I don’t believe he’s as incisive as you seem to. “Walk back Civil rights, just not too far” is a weird argument, but not an exciting one. I want to hear why you find it so compelling!
Making sales requires reaching an audience beyond his normal followers. What is he saying that can bridge that gulf? Does any of it ring true to someone who doesn’t already buy in to his premises?
Like most pundits, he's hit or miss. I agree with him about crime, IQ, and so on , but he's probably wrong about obesity. It's interesting how in 2021 he found a following in an otherwise saturated market of Twitter politics by capturing the small but influential anti-populist, post-neocon center-right niche that had been underserved by the dominant post-Covid , Trump-era populist consensus. Richard rejected the anti-vaxers , but also rejected the pro-mask and pro-mandate side, which was the elite position to take that made him allies with important, wealthy like-minded people in tech and VC. Same for rejecting Jan 6th. it's a small niche but its adherents are people with large platforms, like Marc Andreessen, Musk, and Chamath which helped his niche ideas spread, much more so than had he parroted stale populist talking points like everyone else.
His book does not need to sell that many copies, as he has good income from substack, donors, and the people who read his book are important and help spread its message to those in high positions of power and influence. It was never intended to be as big of a seller compared to a talk radio host's book. it's somewhere in-between a mainstream book and an academic book.
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I find it compelling because his explanation for how government action led to wokeness makes perfect sense. Most conservatives believe the ideology came about organically, when it was created after the fact to justify nonsense being imposed by courts. Also, admittedly, I'm guilty of motivated reasoning. I'm desperate for absolutely any kind of political solution that isn't radical.
He needs to reach people who think wokeness is bad, but don't understand why every single institution has adopted it. The book explains why.
My view is that wokeness uses whatever means are available to gain power, it literally is based on analyzing power relations and taking advantage of them. Specific government regulation is just one way to do it, but there are many other examples how they could use different ideas and angles to gain power in institutions ranging from forum communities to organized religions as with now with potential schism in Catholich Curch over attitude toward gay sex of catholic priests of all things. There is no need for Civil Rights act in order to take over moderation of knitting community.
One can also see it in the social technology of intersectionality. They have multiple angles to use ranging from race, through sex, sexual orientation as well as other categories such as disabilities, gender, being fat and so forth including plain old economic Marxism. They use ides from radical feminism, critical race theory, queer theory or postcolonial studies and more utilizing very similar template of oppressed/oppressor dynamics. In this sense woke can spread everywhere from US using mostly guilt of racism but also in UK or France praying on guilt from colonialism but also in Eastern Europe using feminism but also India where they can point to caste system and other issues.
I did not read the book, so does he have some answers of not only for breath of institutions affected but also international reach of the ideas? Because Civil Rights will not cut it as it is too narrow of a scope of ideas as well as geography.
Well, damn. I wasn't even thinking in an international context.
I only got halfway through the book, then took a break to focus on my work. I pick it up when I'm procrastinating, which is also when I made this post. I will come back here if I finish and he does bring that up.
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The problem here is that he viscerally hates that would be audience, and would sell them down the river for a fancy gummy worm, if that. Speaking as a working-class conservative, not only would I support Hanania being canceled, I would support his execution and gladly volunteer to do it myself. He's that much of a sneering asshole. He's the kind of guy to make racists defend black people to avoid the sheer embarrassment of being associated with him.
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