16 Comments

Excellent start to the blog. Look forward to reading more.

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If wokeness has profilerated because it is a socially adaptive form of virtue signaling, the only way it can be slowed is via a socially deleterious linked trait.

Wokeness must be made cringe.

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One of the issues with the signaling model is that wokeness/leftism correlates with worse behavior, not better. Leftism correlates with both crime (weakly) and mental illness (strongly). In any case, it was only recently that leftism became positively correlated with intelligence, so before the 1980s or so (USA), signaling leftism would be signaling lower, not higher, intelligence.

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A possible explanation for this shift in the 1980s could be found here:

https://josephheath.substack.com/p/john-rawls-and-the-death-of-western

https://josephheath.substack.com/p/key-stages-in-the-decline-of-academic

The gist is that by this point Marxism as an intellectual project was running on fumes (it has nothing to do with the posterior collapse of the USSR mind you). It was a long time coming, happening gradually. You can see this as various forms of neo-marxism became hip and faded out. First OG Marxism, then Leninism, then Stalinism (in the 30s), Maoism, etc.

By the 70s and 80s, it stopped being hip altogether. A threshold was crossed and all the cool and smart people switched to espousing liberal-egalitarianism, which within a decade or so evolved into its present form. The author put it best:

𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘥𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘮? 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵, 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘰-𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴, 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩-𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘴. 𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘺𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 – 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘩𝘦𝘯, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘗𝘩𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘱𝘱𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘯 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘫𝘴, 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘙𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘳, 𝘈𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘯 𝘉𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘑𝘰𝘯 𝘌𝘭𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 – 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘚𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘏𝘢𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘴, 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘷𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘢𝘴 “𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮.” 𝘖𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘦, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘭𝘥-𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 “𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮” 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 19𝘵𝘩 𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘺, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘺𝘭𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘧 𝘑𝘰𝘩𝘯 𝘙𝘢𝘸𝘭𝘴.

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I also checked a new Danish dataset. Leftism correlates r = 0 with intelligence, and there's no nonlinear pattern either, and nothing shows up controlling for age and sex either. The spread of wokeness in Denmark then cannot be explained by signaling intelligence this way, unless you think it's influence from USA or somewhere else.

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'In any case, it was only recently that leftism became positively correlated with intelligence, so before the 1980s or so (USA), signaling leftism would be signaling lower, not higher, intelligence.'

The stereotype that educated elites lean left goes back much further, and stereotypes are true. The reason there was no correlation before the 1980s between leftism and IQ is because there were people voting Right for essentially economic reasons and wealth correlates with IQ. That this has changed is partly a result of the shift from economic to cultural leftism, and partly a result of higher penetration of higher education throughout society.

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It signals cooperation towards minorities, not human value.

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Another problem is that the very diversity in elite spaces being appealed to as a justification for wokeness as a necessary filter for the ability to cooperate with non-coethnics *is a product of wokeness*

It was simply not an inevitability that all Western elite classes would be "diverse" enough for this to be a central skillset. Except maybe for America. Even America theoretically could have ended up with some mix of selected and assimilated white-passing Hispanics and black elites. A dyad, not this current variegated mix.

It's especially true in Europe, where countries like England were >95% white in the 50s.

What happened? Mass immigration. Why does mass immigration keep happening? Mostly financial reasons but also because the anti migration side is utterly hemmed in by the equality thesis.

Why not import a bunch of successful Indian and black migrants into the elite class, if race is not real and reversion to the mean isn't a real thing? Even if it takes a generation for them to fully assimilate they will do so, like white immigrants to the US did, and help balance the books. If this works (or doesn't explosively fail) you can import more. If it doesn't you can call the country racist, implement AA to fix this and create an elite class out of them anyway and they can agitate to import more.

Saying otherwise was racist (Islamic migration seems to be the easiest for people to argue against since the culture clash is so obvious) and by the time the economic evidence was unavoidable (as in: available in places normies read) diversity was a fact of life.

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I agree that the greater diversity in the United States was an important factor for causing wokism, but I'm still not convinced that diversity combined with virtue-signaling was enough to cause wokism.

I don't agree with all the ideas in Cofnas's theory either, and I think he missed a lot of important events and factors, so I wrote my own comprehensive theory of wokism. https://zerocontradictions.net/civilization/wokism

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> the true strength of woke religious practice: that it’s an accurate signal of, dare I say, virtue.

This needs to be qualified by the observation that multiple systems of virtue exist, and that the system of virtue associated with wokism is a particular one: "civilized", "domesticated", or we might even say "domestic" virtue. This observation notably rescues the value of the effeminate term "Cancel Culture". Why? Broadly speaking, the anti-woke system of virtue is a social construct corresponding to conflict resolution via tribal warfare, while the woke system of virtue corresponds to conflict resolution via Girardian scapegoating. In the former system, the different tribes (eg MAGA, Hindutva, and libertarian techies in the recent H1B controversy) fight with each other, and honor accrues to the tribal fighters who pwn the enemy tribes. In the latter system, conflict is resolved by eliminating an individual who represents the sins of a tribe and is blamed for the conflict, while honor accrues to the greater mass of the community for turning on one of their own. It should be obvious that while neither system necessarily leads to for lasting peace, the latter system does offer certain temporary psychological comforts that the former does not. These two systems of virtue therefore appeal to different people based on psychological disposition, testosterone levels, etc.

This leads to another question, about what wokism is. Is wokism, to paraphrase the Man from Galilee, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let that person's people be you folx's servant"? If so, wokism is an excellent governing system indeed, while it lasts. It means that, to qualify as the leader of all, one must necessarily disavow allegiance to one's own tribe, demonstrating willingness to put one's own people last. Or is it, "Whosoever will be chief among you, let the bottom feeders on the Progressive Stack be you folx's servant?" This ambiguity was of course irrelevant for most of American history, because the American ruling class was drawn from the bottom of the progressive stack, and so the two potential definitions were accidentally equivalent. And so wokism progressed, and it was a decent compromise because non-dominant groups found it reassuring to know that leaders were not looking out for their own dominant group. But starting in the 2010s, the ambiguity became relevant, because it turns out that Subcontinental-Jamaican Boss-Women had assumed the latter interpretation was operational, while others in the coalition had assumed the former. And since the dominant group ceased to be dominant, the two definitions became non-equivalent, and so the coalition unwound. Indeed, if Subcontinental-Jamaican Boss-Women are constitutionally unwilling or unable to perform the former interpretation, then the system of wokism can only ever be that form of white supremacy in which old white men betray slightly-less-old white men. This necessarily means that wokism has within itself an expiration date, when society runs out of elite not-slightly-less-old white men. After this expiration date, politics necessarily reassumes its traditional form, conflict resolution via tribal warfare.

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"More diversity in American elite spaces--->returns to signaling you can thrive in diverse settings goes up"

How does this square timeline-wise?

The judicial decisions regarding disparate impact and affirmative action happened in the early 1970s, and by the 1960s most of the (Northern) elite accepted the "equality thesis" as true... but the elite of the 1960s was >95% white.

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I think the timeline works out actually. Probably the many internationally mobile gifted children of local elites from the various english-speaking British colonies or elsewhere who increasingly started to come to study at western universities.

I assume there were a lot more people like for example the lifelong political activist Tarak Nath Das -- a political asylum seeker in America from colonial India who was a Berkeley student in ~1907 and then later a polysci professor at Columbia. Reading the following links, it blows my mind how blatantly the activities of a dude from the early 1900s matches the stereotype of a person like that in 2024:

* https://lib.uw.edu/specialcollections/collections/exhibits/southasianstudents/das/

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarak_Nath_Das

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Really good writing and much to think about!

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In order to explain the origin of wokeness it would be necessary to explain why being a leftist is seen as good or virtuous, while being a right winger is seen as evil. And neither Rufo nor Hanania do that.

I know it sounds too simplistic, but Hobsbawm and Chomsky remained respected uncancelled academics until their last breath despite having supported communist regimes of the xxth century that killed millions of people, and being rather unrepentant about it.

On the other hand, supporting a much milder regime, like that of Pinochet (who killed around 3200 people) would be extremely problematic for any academic and probable career suicide.

If wokeness is a form of virtue signaling, we also need to explain why left wing ideas are seen as virtuous, and the answer to that is probably decades and centuries old, going back to Nazism, the French Revolution, the Protestant Reformation and wars of Religion, the Galileo affair, and the negative narrative developed in the Renaissance about what we now call the middle ages. The idea of progress and revolution being good and noble while the reactionaries and conservatives are the bad guys has become ingrained in our civilization.

When Woke people would say that they are "on the right side of history" that is exactly what they meant. It's quite similar to the "we will bury you" of Khrushchev.

I think the wokeness of the last years was progressivism gone overboard by the huge success of the legalization of gay marriage in the late 2000s. After transforming one of the most basal institutions of society, progressives thought there was an open road for transforming society in any way they wanted, and it took a few years until a resistance that could stop them developed.

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It is certainly true that a model of adaptive ideology needs to take into account that it is path dependent. Early Moldbug was very big on this (the Puritan Hypothesis), probably too much so, and later Moldbug swung too hard in the opposite direction. The core truth is that socially adaptative forms of virtue signaling need to be extensions of already prevalent ideas. In this sense, Cofnas is certainly correct; you can't get to Woke without already having general acceptance of egalitarianism.

The question then becomes how much of Woke is perfectly adaptive, how much is limited by being path dependent and hence imperfectly adaptive, and how much is genuinely vestigial. You can't reason about that from first principles, though, you have to look.

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Too blackpilled. I will choose instead to pursue the Quixotic anti-woke crusade, and convince everyone that woke is declining. And of course, the best way to convince people of a belief is to believe it yourself…

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