Awoke and awash
New book could be ‘Fahrenheit 2022’
WE WERE reminded the other day of a story that appeared last year in The New York Times. It considered the influence of American “wokism” on Europe.
It’s not often one sees a headline as striking: “Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So.”
The story chronicled the frustration felt by many French citizens over what was perceived to be an actual threat to French identity by—what else?—the identity politics ferried over the pond by American students.
What reminded us of The Times piece was a recent article in The Intercept about the seeming blind obedience to wokeness that’s handicapping some of the very organizations working to advance what is considered to be the woke agenda.
Several group executives spoke to writer Ryan Grim, most of them anonymously, about their exasperation over staff infighting. What follows are some of the quotes by those executives. Depending on your political stripes, enjoy . . . or not:
■ “So much energy has been devoted to the internal strife and internal bull **** that it’s had a real impact on the ability for groups to deliver. It’s been huge, particularly over the last year and a half or so, the ability for groups to focus on their mission, whether it’s reproductive justice, or jobs, or fighting climate change.”
■ “My last nine months, I was spending 90 to 95 percent of my time on internal strife. Whereas [before] that would have been 25-30 percent.”
■ “Most people thought that their worst critics were their competitors, and they’re finding out that their worst critics are on their own payroll.”
■ “I got to a point like three years ago where I had a crisis of faith, like, I don’t even know, most of these spaces on the left are just not—they’re not healthy. Like all these people are just not— they’re not doing well. The dynamic, the toxic dynamic of whatever you want to call it—callout culture, cancel culture, whatever—is creating this really intense thing, and no one is able to acknowledge it, no one’s able to talk about it, no one’s able to say how bad it is.”
■ “A lot of staff that work for me, they expect the organization to be all the things: a movement, OK, get out the vote, OK, healing, OK, take care of you when you’re sick, OK. It’s all the things. ‘Can you get your love and healing at home, please?’ But I can’t say that, they would crucify me.”
■ “. . . You couldn’t conceive of a better right-wing plot to paralyze progressive leaders by catalyzing the existing culture where internal turmoil and micro-campaigns are mistaken for strategic advancement of social impact for the millions of people depending on these organizations . . . . ”
■ “I’m now at a point where the first thing I wonder about a job applicant is, ‘How likely is this person to blow up my organization from the inside?’”
And these are the executives of places promoting the woke agenda. (It’s certainly not hard to imagine similar quotes from local Republican Party leaders throughout the land forced to step in and play referee with the MAGAs and Never Trumpers.) Once again, a movement is eating its young. And it reminds us of another quote, something somebody said in a book long ago. And deserves reprinting here:
“Don’t step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic books survive. And the three-dimensional sex magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn’t come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals.”
—Captain Beatty, in “Fahrenheit 451”