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Peak Woke?
City Journal ^ | 6 Jul, 2022 | Oliver Traldi

Posted on 07/07/2022 9:57:16 AM PDT by MtnClimber

The ultra-progressive mindset maintains its grip on institutional power, but in terms of what people actually believe, it’s on the downswing.

About a decade ago, something began building steam in America’s elite cultural and intellectual institutions—universities, national newspapers and magazines, museum boards, award committees. Callout culture, cancel culture, identity politics, social justice, critical race theory, postmodern neo-Marxism, wokeness: whatever you want to call it, it was happening. Wokeness developed new and previously extreme ideas around race and gender, and especially around how people ought to conduct themselves in their everyday interactions when race and gender were considered (and race and gender were always to be considered).

America’s Great Awokening produced cottage industries and small fortunes. Consultants and trainers peddled odd academic theories to multinational corporations, earning millions; authors such as Ibram X. Kendi won massive grants and intellectual prizes. On the other side, public intellectuals like Jordan Peterson emerged in part as theorists of what was wrong about woke culture; conservatives like Ben Shapiro and liberals like Dave Rubin grew their audiences with an anti-woke message.

We can divide political strategies and conceptions of political ideology between those that involve trying to persuade people in their hearts and minds and those that try to gain power practically. In terms of the first approach, I think we’ve hit peak woke, by which I mean that wokeness is on the downswing. The Great Awokening is over, and even the most progressive people are starting to feel a hangover. Consider first the evidence for this proposition, then some of the possible causes.

A central type of evidence that we’ve hit peak woke comes from exhaustion with its mandates within its ostensible political home, progressive activism. This has been brewing for a while, but it was given convincing expression in Ryan Grim’s recent Intercept

(Excerpt) Read more at city-journal.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; Society
KEYWORDS: wokefied; wokeism

1 posted on 07/07/2022 9:57:16 AM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

It is time to pound in the concept to “ESG corporations” that you get woke, you go broke.


2 posted on 07/07/2022 9:57:29 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber
Absolute rubbish.

Wokeness was soundly beaten in 2020. The RINO-controlled state legislatures turned a blind eye to the cheating so they could get rid of Trump, and their hatred was so intense that they were willing to allow 3 Senate seats to fall to the Democrats (2 in GA and 1 in MI) because to investigate the fraud in the Senate races would have exposed the same fraud against Trump. So the presidency and Senate were lost because of RINO-controlled state legislatures, along with a subsequent SCOTUS nomination that should have been made by Trump.

This idea that wokeness is popular is a false narrative.

3 posted on 07/07/2022 10:01:57 AM PDT by HandBasketHell
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To: HandBasketHell
Corporations going woke is them trying to shape opinion by controlling a narrative that wokeness is common.

This is no different than modern-day "pollsters" who just publish opinion-shaping surveys, rather than reflecting what the public really thinks.

4 posted on 07/07/2022 10:04:04 AM PDT by HandBasketHell
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To: MtnClimber

I don’t know about “peak wokeness” but we hopefully did reach the peak of people sitting back and just putting up with it and ignoring it...but the damage has been done.


5 posted on 07/07/2022 10:05:11 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: MtnClimber

Unfortunately, I don’t think we are anywhere near peak woke?


6 posted on 07/07/2022 10:17:02 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: MtnClimber

Just think about this: millennials and Gen Z are becoming more of the population, and the greater percentage of this believes this, and doesn’t know anything else.


7 posted on 07/07/2022 10:18:06 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Ditto.
We’re living in Heinlein’s Crazy Years.


8 posted on 07/07/2022 10:22:22 AM PDT by Little Ray (Civilization runs on a narrow margin. What sustains it is not magic, but hard work. )
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To: HandBasketHell

WOKE Disney stock lost 47% June ‘21 to June ‘22///

Get WOKE - Go BROKE

https://www.yahoo.com/video/investors-walt-disney-nyse-dis-112615996.html


9 posted on 07/07/2022 10:24:28 AM PDT by GOPJ (MAGA POWER - - President Trump's endorsement record is 144-10)
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To: HandBasketHell

This idea that wokeness is popular is a false narrative.
___________________________

The author agrees with that point. However, he points out that by now, the entire administrative panoply of all institutions, including government, has incorporated and normalized wokeness. Therefore, we have a way to go to eradicate it from law and policy.


10 posted on 07/07/2022 10:33:03 AM PDT by reformedliberal (Make yourself less available.)
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To: MtnClimber

There is no limit to human stupidity and being Woke only trades in stupidity ... so even if the numbers of stupid people may “peak” the stupidity of the already Woke need still know no bounds.


11 posted on 07/07/2022 10:33:17 AM PDT by Rurudyne (Standup Philosopher)
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To: HandBasketHell

Sure. Not popular but that’s a false standard. But they are in charge.. destroying lives and civilization.

How much more encouraged and successful can they feel and be?


12 posted on 07/07/2022 10:40:02 AM PDT by Born in 1950 (Anti left, nothing else.)
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To: HandBasketHell
Nowhere in the essay does he claim that wokeness was ever popular in general. The only claim is that it was/is popular with the elites who run our major institutions.

The good news appears to be that an increasing percentage of the liberal elites are tiring of wokeness.

The bad news is that when wokeness was in vogue certain policies were put in place that everyone in those institutions still has to follow for fear of getting expelled or fired from those institutions.

So wokeness will be with us for quite some time even if the majority of Americans were never woke.

After all, the majority of Americans voted for Trump and yet Biden is still president... or at least his handlers are.

13 posted on 07/07/2022 10:43:14 AM PDT by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not a tagline.)
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To: MtnClimber

“It is time to pound in the concept to “ESG corporations” that you get woke, you go broke.”

This.


14 posted on 07/07/2022 11:07:50 AM PDT by Ms. AntiFeminazi
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To: Ms. AntiFeminazi

15 posted on 07/07/2022 11:27:39 AM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of Colorado scenery and wildlife, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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