Is wokeness a form of bourgeois rectitude?
Respect for authority (the new gatekeepers), etiquette and taboos (speech codes), moral campaigns (cancellation), uptightness (prohibition on cultural appropriation), prudence and risk-aversion (following the rules of HR bureaucracy).
Respect for authority (the new gatekeepers), etiquette and taboos (speech codes), moral campaigns (cancellation), uptightness (prohibition on cultural appropriation), prudence and risk-aversion (following the rules of HR bureaucracy).
*If* this is so, then what did it replace? A different form of bourgeois rectitude that obtained in the preceding period (90s and 2000s)? Or has bourgeois rectitude returned - as wokeness - after a period of absence?
I'm tempted to conclude the latter.
I'm tempted to conclude the latter.
This would sustain the idea that the 1990s were the last time we were free. Divested of tradition and duty, market freedom reached its high point, before being submerged by new strictures, possibly emanating from the turbulence of the end of the end of history.
Two other notes:
1. I see this clearly in 🇧🇷. Tho wokeness is certainly weaker here, the 90s were peak sex (see children's TV). Old catholic strictures had waned and post-Catholic permissiveness was on the up, before the recent evangelical-informed moralisation (cc @tom_m_b)
1. I see this clearly in 🇧🇷. Tho wokeness is certainly weaker here, the 90s were peak sex (see children's TV). Old catholic strictures had waned and post-Catholic permissiveness was on the up, before the recent evangelical-informed moralisation (cc @tom_m_b)
2. The mealy mouthed, bad faith defence of woke from the left refuses to engage with form. It notes woke is "about" social justice, and so concludes that this content is enough to vouch for it.
But critique always has to engage with FORM, perhaps even more than content.
But critique always has to engage with FORM, perhaps even more than content.
Form is sedimented content, so expresses content in a much deeper sense than just examining content
The form of wokeness (for instance: hectoring, intolerant, bureaucratic) tells us much more about it as an instance of bourgeois rectitude than just going "oh good social justice"
The form of wokeness (for instance: hectoring, intolerant, bureaucratic) tells us much more about it as an instance of bourgeois rectitude than just going "oh good social justice"
@AllyFogg Conterast this with, for example, supporting black-owned businesses (banking a particular group's insertion into the market... Why??) or saying that only certain people have a right to speak (always well-educated, well-off, self-appointed spokespeople for heterogenous minorities)
@ghostofchristo1 @davidrieff So there's a certain homology with race here: the "anti-racism" of wokes emerges in the past decade when race has never been of less relevance, no longer ruling ideology. And it rises to REIFY race.
Wokeness constructs (builds back up) its own enemies
Wokeness constructs (builds back up) its own enemies
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