“She pushes this idiot theory she has about how this supposedly brand new interest in wealth inequality has bubbled up from the existence of the internet and social media, and now the typical teenage layabout can see that celebrities exist, and so, anxiety about wealth inequality stems from ordinary people getting jealous about Taylor Swift’s private jet.”
The only thing social media has done in this context is that the wealthy have to hear what the nonwealthy think of them. They can’t just ask their servants “I’m still cool right?” and get the obligatory answer.
I have been mulling over a hypothesis. In this first Trump administration I heard people on both the Left and Right say, as shorthand, that the Right had political power and the Left had cultural power -- Conservatives were ascendent in the courts and Congress and Trump was president but, culturally, there was still a growing sense that gay people were okay (and a lot of people thought trans people were just fine) and some slow progress on the idea that bullying was bad, and that people shouldn't try to gain status by making fun other others, etc . . .
In that context you saw the phrase, "politics is downstream of culture" meaning that whatever political victories the Trump administration had, those cultural shifts would be the more durable predictor of the future of America.
At this moment that doesn't seem accurate. In the culture we're in a "backlash" moment, and it's not clear that "politics is downstream of culture" is a good predictor (if it ever was).
So, to the extent that I think claims about "woke is dead" mean anything (which isn't very much), I think they may be tapping into the feeling that "culture" is pulling America leftwards.
Great thoughts... It all really comes down to whether we want to embrace an ever evolving, ultra challenging, civilized society, or to succumb to an easy, uncomplicated, emotion fueled barbarism.
"Woke" is just the new socialism/communism and all are just words for anything CONservatives don't like. They don't really know what any of these things are and it doesn't really matter to them.
“She pushes this idiot theory she has about how this supposedly brand new interest in wealth inequality has bubbled up from the existence of the internet and social media, and now the typical teenage layabout can see that celebrities exist, and so, anxiety about wealth inequality stems from ordinary people getting jealous about Taylor Swift’s private jet.”
The only thing social media has done in this context is that the wealthy have to hear what the nonwealthy think of them. They can’t just ask their servants “I’m still cool right?” and get the obligatory answer.
I remember when all the complaints were about political correctness AKA PC which operated the same way until it disappeared.
Kinda how the trans panic looks pretty similar to the gay marriage panic from 20-25 years ago.
I have been mulling over a hypothesis. In this first Trump administration I heard people on both the Left and Right say, as shorthand, that the Right had political power and the Left had cultural power -- Conservatives were ascendent in the courts and Congress and Trump was president but, culturally, there was still a growing sense that gay people were okay (and a lot of people thought trans people were just fine) and some slow progress on the idea that bullying was bad, and that people shouldn't try to gain status by making fun other others, etc . . .
In that context you saw the phrase, "politics is downstream of culture" meaning that whatever political victories the Trump administration had, those cultural shifts would be the more durable predictor of the future of America.
At this moment that doesn't seem accurate. In the culture we're in a "backlash" moment, and it's not clear that "politics is downstream of culture" is a good predictor (if it ever was).
So, to the extent that I think claims about "woke is dead" mean anything (which isn't very much), I think they may be tapping into the feeling that "culture" is pulling America leftwards.
Great thoughts... It all really comes down to whether we want to embrace an ever evolving, ultra challenging, civilized society, or to succumb to an easy, uncomplicated, emotion fueled barbarism.
My two cents:
https://open.substack.com/pub/daryllkrivanos140967/p/the-barbarians-at-the-gate?
"Woke" is just the new socialism/communism and all are just words for anything CONservatives don't like. They don't really know what any of these things are and it doesn't really matter to them.