View From the Ramparts: Isolation as a weapon
Wokesters try to drain hope from the rest of us
"What's really going on here is that one side of the debate wants to make it impermissible for the other to speak. At all."
— Marc J. Randazza
To judge by their behavior, the Woke do not believe in the power of persuasion.
They tend to refuse to engage in thoughtful debate with their political, cultural and social opponents — claiming that to so engage them would only legitimize what the woke assure us are universally unacceptable views.
This refusal to engage in the arena of ideas only has two possible explanations:
First, that even the Woke don’t actually believe the things they say; or second, they think those who disagree with them are too stupid to be convinced by solid debate and argument.
Neither option casts the Woke in a particularly favorable light.
The notion that the Woke reject the power of persuasion isn’t a theory of mine - it is simply an observation of the Woke in action.
They do not seek to convert, but to subvert: Both their front-line tactics and their overall strategy are predicated not on countering their ideological opponents with superior logic and unassailable facts, but rather on silencing them — us — by any means necessary.
Censorship is at the heart of the Woke political machinery — witness the revelation of the recent Twitter files, or the string of very public “cancellations” of prominent journalists, actors, comedians and politicians the past few years.
And when censorship fails, intimidation is their default fallback play — the anonymous online mobs threatening dissenters, publishing their home address or posting photos of their children leaving school.
The woke can’t even decide if they are hapless victims or triumphant victors.
On one hand, they love to warn their opponents that said opponents are “on the wrong side of history” — as if history were some foregone conclusion, just waiting for the conquerors to finish mopping up the last few pockets of the backwater filth that dared stand in opposition.
Yet, when confronted with political or cultural opponents who refuse to be silenced, the Woke then turn around and claim they are the victims of all-powerful forces of oppression.
The latest bit of Woke silliness is claiming that any public criticism of them or their methods is itself an “act of violence.” Even calling them out by name is now condemned in many quarters as putting the woke “in real physical danger.”
And never you mind their own habit of doxing anyone who dares stand up to them.
The Washington Post actually employs a purported “reporter” whose beat seems to consist of outing non-Woke online personalities who operate behind a nom de plume. She’ll dig around, find their real name — and then not only identify them, but publish their home or work address!
And if that person, or even other journalists, ask whether this is indeed “journalism,” she then complains that these criticisms are placing her life in real, physical danger (although she struggles to explain just how she’s in danger).
In fact, don’t even use the word “Woke” — we now see prominent Wokesters claiming that “woke” itself is a slur and that “cancel culture” is merely a far-right pipe dream.
These claims don’t jibe, though, with the documented reality that it was the Woke themselves who coined the contemporary usage of the word “cancel” to mean destroying someone’s career, reputation and personal life if they write or say something the Woke disagree with.
When some conservative or moderate, or even a heretical leftist like Bill Maher, would post something on Twitter that violated Woke theology, it was the Wokesters — mostly anonymous — who would repost the offending tweet with the hashtag “#cancel.” Massive letter-writing campaigns would often result — to an actor’s studio, a journalist’s network or publication, a non-celebrity’s employer — demanding that they be fired. And threatening boycotts, pickets or worse if the firing didn’t take place, and soon.
To see the Woke now try to deny that this happened — repeatedly — is a sorry spectacle indeed.
And it was the Woke who gave themselves that moniker — indicating (in their view) that they had indeed, as revolutionaries forever have demanded, “woke up,” torn off their blinders, and engaged with the world in full, unfiltered honesty.
But behind all of this — the attempts to belittle and delegitimize dissent, to “cancel” those who publicly hold the Woke accountable, to dox and harass those who still refuse to toe the line — is the threat of isolation.
All of the above tactics are aimed at frightening those who surround the person being targeted into silence, so that the target feels utterly alone.
Oddly — or maybe not — it is a tactic that works most effectively when deployed against fellow Wokesters.
We see it in the formulaic apologies: the acknowledgment of having “caused harm,” the promise to “do better.”
The purpose here is to imprint upon the offending heretic that membership in the clique is conditional, and can be withdrawn at any moment.
Human beings by nature are social creatures — we crave that sense of belonging, of having a family, a clan that we can call home.
And this is where the Woke strategy has its most glaring weakness: Those with strong, resilient social circles that are immune to the Woke’s corrosiveness are least likely to be affected by these tactics.
The comedian Bill Maher, for instance: He’s immune to Woke attempts to cancel or intimidate him, and is too popular to be dismissed.
Thus the hatred.
Just as communities of bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics after all the weak bacteria are killed off, maybe our society is becoming resistant to the Woke as more and more dissenters successfully stand up to them.
And who knows?
This might turn out to be good for the Woke as well.
If their tactics of intimidation and isolation no longer are effective, they just might turn to old standbys like debate.
Nothing can firm up a system of beliefs like having its adherents actually learn enough about them that they can defend them from critics.
Should we ever arrive at that point where the Woke are willing to engage in the world of ideas instead of simply proclaiming their beliefs as received wisdom, the rest of us will get the chance to discover whether they actually have something of substance to contribute to our culture.
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Kind of reminds me of “The X Files” TV series poster…”I Want To Believe” which, of course, does not make it true.
Define the woke. I hear that all the time, but I'm not sure who they are.