There's five extra years (and more!) than the boomers had before life starting pulling them away from causes. Combine this with senior executives who are deathly afraid of the damage their own workforces can do internally (Think about the convulsions rocking Facebook now, or the NYT, or Google after the Damore memo) and the conditions are ripe for exactly what we're seeing.
The wokenfolk get what they want because their social justice issues provide a useful distraction away from real issues like class and wealth inequality. Even the programs designed to address the latter are distributions from the winners to the losers (Andrew Yang's "freedom dividend") without addressing the underlying issues that created the gaps in the first place. In the meantime, distract on the main issues. "Woke-ness" sustains neoliberalism. It’s the logical culmination of neoliberalism which a) privatizes Government and b) privileges race and gender over class.
If the boards of half a dozen corporations govern us more than Congress, then it follows they should have representatives of the “peoples”—that is, the reified identitarian races and genders (not classes, religions, political worldviews or regions).
We don’t need a Congress and legislatures. We can have a system of virtual pigment and genital representation on the boards of Google, Apple, Goldman, etc.
The diverse boards will set the rules (laws) in every major economic realm as well as speech and civil rights. If they don’t like you, you can’t get published, can’t get a loan, your online writings will vanish, etc. (Woke Democrats will be safe but conservatives and Marxists will be purged).
Congress, legislatures and city councils will continue to exist to rubber stamp the decisions of the Six Corporate Boards. Obedient Democrats and Republicans will be rewarded by board memberships.
Diversitarian technocratic oligarchy, a soft dictatorship.
What could be more dystopian than a global pandemic? Singapore, but with diversity!
Sixties radicals sold out, but they *knew* they sold out (look how casually you yourself talk about the selling out!) and thus they had bad conscience. They were unwilling to impose upon those who followed them the institutional rules they knew they didn't really believe in. People selling out is always a transition phase; it's not sustainable in the long term, because once the institutions are run by people who have sold out and know it, bad conscience poisons the whole system.
The collapse of the conservative movement is a perfect mirror image of this. Conservative institutions were created to serve as an alternative system for right-wingers who weren't allowed to rise in the mainstream systems of politics, academia, journalism, etc. under progressive dominance. Then, as the conservative "mirror" system became big and rich enough to make selling out an option, leaders began selling out. The resulting bad conscience made the movement leaders unwilling to impose the institutional rules when Trumpists, seeing that the system was hollow, moved in and took over by simply refusing to respect the institutional rules.
Moral: Institutions cannot last unless people really believe in them as institutions rather than as convenient platforms for some other agenda; genuine anti-institutional radicalism of either the Right or Left can't last, because it can't build anything.
radical-millennial success: (1) leveraging social-pressure technology; (2) a lot of Boomers and Xers support them; Boomers didn't have the numbers from previous generations; (3) We're a lot wealthier per capita, more leeway for playing around, parental $ to fall back on, etc.
Why is it different? Very simple. Boomers had/have more to lose from a true revolution, and knew it all along. Millennials have far less, if anything to lose. Boomers are busy now fighting amongst themselves over the estates the Greatest Generation left them. Boomers have always talked a good talk when it comes to radical politics, but shy away from the real thing because it would cost them money. Boomers and their desire to get a lifetime's worth of income at the beginning of their lives, without having to work for it, was the real plutonium of the so-called Reagan Revolution. Without that greed, history would look rather different.
And, just to be clear, I say this as a Boomer who knows my generation well, who has had something to lose, and who is willing to put that something on the line if it meant getting a real revolution.
At this point the risk of an immigration sellout is much higher for the rest of the year, Trump is most likely going to lose and as such needs to secure a safe place for himself post 2020, doing an immigration sellout would be one way to do that.
Are you serious? Do you really think 1960s radicalism didn't infiltrate universities, Hollywood, the media and journalism at the time? Or that today's loony radicalism will have more staying power than its counterpart of 50 years ago?
The only change is that an industry that didn't exist back then--tech--has also succumbed (although far less than many think--it's still much more focused on making money than being woke.) Otherwise, the pattern of largely frivolous, insular, non-competitive, unaccountable sectors being easily co-opted by fans of the latest silly trends remains intact.
The woke are Don Quixote heralding the end of their age. The waves of Sancho Panzas they fought so hard to let into the country will provide the proper contrast/context to their madness to help the rest of us see it, and the passing age, for what it is.
Re: Why is it different this time
I think this might have something to do with it:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/01/14/462816458/average-age-of-first-time-moms-keeps-climbing-in-the-u-s
There's five extra years (and more!) than the boomers had before life starting pulling them away from causes. Combine this with senior executives who are deathly afraid of the damage their own workforces can do internally (Think about the convulsions rocking Facebook now, or the NYT, or Google after the Damore memo) and the conditions are ripe for exactly what we're seeing.
good point! also, yes to all of the things MK suggested as causes.
The wokenfolk get what they want because their social justice issues provide a useful distraction away from real issues like class and wealth inequality. Even the programs designed to address the latter are distributions from the winners to the losers (Andrew Yang's "freedom dividend") without addressing the underlying issues that created the gaps in the first place. In the meantime, distract on the main issues. "Woke-ness" sustains neoliberalism. It’s the logical culmination of neoliberalism which a) privatizes Government and b) privileges race and gender over class.
If the boards of half a dozen corporations govern us more than Congress, then it follows they should have representatives of the “peoples”—that is, the reified identitarian races and genders (not classes, religions, political worldviews or regions).
We don’t need a Congress and legislatures. We can have a system of virtual pigment and genital representation on the boards of Google, Apple, Goldman, etc.
The diverse boards will set the rules (laws) in every major economic realm as well as speech and civil rights. If they don’t like you, you can’t get published, can’t get a loan, your online writings will vanish, etc. (Woke Democrats will be safe but conservatives and Marxists will be purged).
Congress, legislatures and city councils will continue to exist to rubber stamp the decisions of the Six Corporate Boards. Obedient Democrats and Republicans will be rewarded by board memberships.
Diversitarian technocratic oligarchy, a soft dictatorship.
What could be more dystopian than a global pandemic? Singapore, but with diversity!
Sixties radicals sold out, but they *knew* they sold out (look how casually you yourself talk about the selling out!) and thus they had bad conscience. They were unwilling to impose upon those who followed them the institutional rules they knew they didn't really believe in. People selling out is always a transition phase; it's not sustainable in the long term, because once the institutions are run by people who have sold out and know it, bad conscience poisons the whole system.
The collapse of the conservative movement is a perfect mirror image of this. Conservative institutions were created to serve as an alternative system for right-wingers who weren't allowed to rise in the mainstream systems of politics, academia, journalism, etc. under progressive dominance. Then, as the conservative "mirror" system became big and rich enough to make selling out an option, leaders began selling out. The resulting bad conscience made the movement leaders unwilling to impose the institutional rules when Trumpists, seeing that the system was hollow, moved in and took over by simply refusing to respect the institutional rules.
Moral: Institutions cannot last unless people really believe in them as institutions rather than as convenient platforms for some other agenda; genuine anti-institutional radicalism of either the Right or Left can't last, because it can't build anything.
sharp. makes sense.
radical-millennial success: (1) leveraging social-pressure technology; (2) a lot of Boomers and Xers support them; Boomers didn't have the numbers from previous generations; (3) We're a lot wealthier per capita, more leeway for playing around, parental $ to fall back on, etc.
Why is it different? Very simple. Boomers had/have more to lose from a true revolution, and knew it all along. Millennials have far less, if anything to lose. Boomers are busy now fighting amongst themselves over the estates the Greatest Generation left them. Boomers have always talked a good talk when it comes to radical politics, but shy away from the real thing because it would cost them money. Boomers and their desire to get a lifetime's worth of income at the beginning of their lives, without having to work for it, was the real plutonium of the so-called Reagan Revolution. Without that greed, history would look rather different.
And, just to be clear, I say this as a Boomer who knows my generation well, who has had something to lose, and who is willing to put that something on the line if it meant getting a real revolution.
OK, let the brickbats begin. I'm used to them.
At this point the risk of an immigration sellout is much higher for the rest of the year, Trump is most likely going to lose and as such needs to secure a safe place for himself post 2020, doing an immigration sellout would be one way to do that.
Are you serious? Do you really think 1960s radicalism didn't infiltrate universities, Hollywood, the media and journalism at the time? Or that today's loony radicalism will have more staying power than its counterpart of 50 years ago?
The only change is that an industry that didn't exist back then--tech--has also succumbed (although far less than many think--it's still much more focused on making money than being woke.) Otherwise, the pattern of largely frivolous, insular, non-competitive, unaccountable sectors being easily co-opted by fans of the latest silly trends remains intact.
The woke are Don Quixote heralding the end of their age. The waves of Sancho Panzas they fought so hard to let into the country will provide the proper contrast/context to their madness to help the rest of us see it, and the passing age, for what it is.