To answer that question, we need to look at how ideologies have historically died. Shall we look at communism?
Communism, specifically Stalinism, was extremely popular among leftist intellectuals in the 1930s. Figures like H.G. Wells, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw and Walter Duranty were big fans, and continued to be big fans through the Holodomor and the Moscow show trials where hapless old Bolsheviks confessed to being part of terrorist plots, and were executed for their pains.
The first real blow came with the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact. A lot of people were communists, because they believed that this was the way to fight fascism, and when they not only saw their great utopia throw in its lot with the Nazis and order foreign communist parties to both not criticize Nazi Germany and oppose any war efforts against it, they became disillusioned.
Communism managed to win back some of its mystique on the back of Russian soldiers fighting for their homes. A lot of allied propaganda also valorized Stalin and downplayed his crimes, because there was something worse out there. In European countries, a lot of people were impressed by the communist resistance, and as a result joined the communist parties.
After World War II, things quickly turned more sour for the communists. The coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 led a lot of useful idiots and fellow travelers to abandon communism. Never mind that the coup was far less bloody and brutal than how the Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia, and the resulting regime was much less repressive. But these types are not known for their great knowledge of history.
In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes against the Party and the military (not against the peasants, obviously). This led to another massive exodus from communists around the world. For years, they had denied that Stalin had done anything wrong, but for the leader of their world movement to admit it, was a devastating blow. It also led to the Hungarian Uprising, which was brutally crushed, which also lost them support. In 1968, the same thing happened in Czechoslovakia, where Alexander Dubcek attempted to create 'socialism with a human face', which was also crushed by the Warsaw Pact. Again, many people left.
The deathblow for communism was the fall of the Soviet Union. Which is ironic, because if we had taken communists at their word, then most did not support the Soviet Union as it was a repressive police state. Yet its collapse led to a collapse of the ideology. A lot of them, I think, were just looking for a movement that is anti-Western. Had it been Nazi Germany, you would have seen some of the same people supporting it.
So how did they lose support? A lot of them seem to center around betraying ideals, or at least what the useful idiots thought were communist ideals (Stalin actually admired Hitler, and vice versa). Communists always pretended that communism is true democracy, so when they crush the people, it looks bad for them. The crimes of communist regimes coming to power also did a great deal. But their loss of political power did them in completely.
A lot of communists, like wokists today, I think were just interested in creating revolution and mayhem. Many communists joined the Nazi Party after it took power. Hitler himself remarked that it was much easier to turn a communist into a Nazi than a Social Democrat. It seemed less of an issue what form this authoritarian dictatorship took, than that there was a revolution resulting in an authoritarian dictatorship.
Wokism is not as closely connected to a state as was communism. Unfortunately, this makes them protean in trying to disclaim responsibility for things like the Rotherham grooming scandal, which are unquestionably a result of their ideology.
There is not a silver bullet now, as there was not in the case for communism. I do think that wokeism commitment is far more shallow than was communism. It has no intellectual underpinning whatsoever and is mostly emotional. Unfortunately, emotions can be very powerful.
There is a good chance that wokeism is just a fad and that it will burn itself out. But I have been waiting for Thermidor since 2014, and it keeps getting worse. The fact that it is deeply embedded in all our corrupt institutions will also make it more difficult to dislodge. Basically, you have to imagine that we live under a dictatorship, and that the wokeist wave will only cease when the criminal and corrupt elites lose faith in their project.
They will when it ceases to suit their interests. For example, if wokeism turns on the elites. But for now, it is a great way to divide people and atomize them, making us so much easier to control.
One of the reasons Wokism is so seductive is because it appeals to all the basest human characteristics.
Tribalism is obviously one. You're automatically part of a tribe, and you can easily identify the enemy tribe.
Envy: That other tribe has nice stuff that they were only able to get by exploiting you.
Abdication of personal responsibility: Your situation is not the result of your own decisions and behavior. It's that other tribe, which have created the entire system to hold you back It's their fault, not yours.
Hatred. You should hate that tribe, because they are out to get you.
Self-righteousness: You are right and just to want to harm that tribe. You can burn their stuff down and feel good about it.
Laziness: You don't have to make any more effort to determine the truth, or evaluate ideas based on merit. That stuff is hard. Instead, your truth is your "lived experience," and anyone who disagrees with that is your oppressor.
Narcissism: Your public denouncing, cancelling, shrieking, chanting empty slogans, and other low-effort signaling draws attention to you to let everyone know what a wonderful person you are.
More laziness: After all the white supremacist patriarchal cis-heteronormative capitalist institutions (i.e. Western Civilization) have been completely destroyed, a new utopian society will magically pop up in its place, and everyone will finally be equal, and all your needs will be provided for.
Enlightenment values, however, are more challenging:
You are free to do what you want, but you are accountable for your actions. If you take risks, you may face negative consequences.
Nobody owes you anything. Life isn't fair. You have the right to pursue happiness, but that doesn't mean you'll get it, even if you work really hard.
You'll have to use reason to evaluate ideas and find the truth. You may even experience uncertainty. This can be uncomfortable.
Others are free to express ideas you might not like. You can't just say "you're oppressing me!" and expect that they will be silenced. You might actually have to pit your ideas against their and run the risk of being proven wrong.
No end state. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Whew, that sounds like hard work! Think I'll just go on Twitter and call everybody I don't like a racist.
Wokeism and nihilism go hand in hand. Its a zero sum game. Douglas Murray also brought up the excellent idea that societal fatigue is a major factor in this. Western superiority has all but killed the foundations upon which it's empire was laid. How long can a people keep going when they no longer believe in what made them exceptional?
Then woke propagandists: Media "journalists", "actors", "game devs", "bipastisan" "activist" institutions like ACLU & SPLC, "professors", "teachers" - ensure everybody is fed the woke paranoid delusion of imaginary nazis everywhere.
To answer that question, we need to look at how ideologies have historically died. Shall we look at communism?
Communism, specifically Stalinism, was extremely popular among leftist intellectuals in the 1930s. Figures like H.G. Wells, Sidney Webb, George Bernard Shaw and Walter Duranty were big fans, and continued to be big fans through the Holodomor and the Moscow show trials where hapless old Bolsheviks confessed to being part of terrorist plots, and were executed for their pains.
The first real blow came with the Molotov-Von Ribbentrop pact. A lot of people were communists, because they believed that this was the way to fight fascism, and when they not only saw their great utopia throw in its lot with the Nazis and order foreign communist parties to both not criticize Nazi Germany and oppose any war efforts against it, they became disillusioned.
Communism managed to win back some of its mystique on the back of Russian soldiers fighting for their homes. A lot of allied propaganda also valorized Stalin and downplayed his crimes, because there was something worse out there. In European countries, a lot of people were impressed by the communist resistance, and as a result joined the communist parties.
After World War II, things quickly turned more sour for the communists. The coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 led a lot of useful idiots and fellow travelers to abandon communism. Never mind that the coup was far less bloody and brutal than how the Bolsheviks had taken power in Russia, and the resulting regime was much less repressive. But these types are not known for their great knowledge of history.
In 1956, Khrushchev denounced Stalin's crimes against the Party and the military (not against the peasants, obviously). This led to another massive exodus from communists around the world. For years, they had denied that Stalin had done anything wrong, but for the leader of their world movement to admit it, was a devastating blow. It also led to the Hungarian Uprising, which was brutally crushed, which also lost them support. In 1968, the same thing happened in Czechoslovakia, where Alexander Dubcek attempted to create 'socialism with a human face', which was also crushed by the Warsaw Pact. Again, many people left.
The deathblow for communism was the fall of the Soviet Union. Which is ironic, because if we had taken communists at their word, then most did not support the Soviet Union as it was a repressive police state. Yet its collapse led to a collapse of the ideology. A lot of them, I think, were just looking for a movement that is anti-Western. Had it been Nazi Germany, you would have seen some of the same people supporting it.
So how did they lose support? A lot of them seem to center around betraying ideals, or at least what the useful idiots thought were communist ideals (Stalin actually admired Hitler, and vice versa). Communists always pretended that communism is true democracy, so when they crush the people, it looks bad for them. The crimes of communist regimes coming to power also did a great deal. But their loss of political power did them in completely.
A lot of communists, like wokists today, I think were just interested in creating revolution and mayhem. Many communists joined the Nazi Party after it took power. Hitler himself remarked that it was much easier to turn a communist into a Nazi than a Social Democrat. It seemed less of an issue what form this authoritarian dictatorship took, than that there was a revolution resulting in an authoritarian dictatorship.
Wokism is not as closely connected to a state as was communism. Unfortunately, this makes them protean in trying to disclaim responsibility for things like the Rotherham grooming scandal, which are unquestionably a result of their ideology.
There is not a silver bullet now, as there was not in the case for communism. I do think that wokeism commitment is far more shallow than was communism. It has no intellectual underpinning whatsoever and is mostly emotional. Unfortunately, emotions can be very powerful.
There is a good chance that wokeism is just a fad and that it will burn itself out. But I have been waiting for Thermidor since 2014, and it keeps getting worse. The fact that it is deeply embedded in all our corrupt institutions will also make it more difficult to dislodge. Basically, you have to imagine that we live under a dictatorship, and that the wokeist wave will only cease when the criminal and corrupt elites lose faith in their project.
They will when it ceases to suit their interests. For example, if wokeism turns on the elites. But for now, it is a great way to divide people and atomize them, making us so much easier to control.
One of the reasons Wokism is so seductive is because it appeals to all the basest human characteristics.
Tribalism is obviously one. You're automatically part of a tribe, and you can easily identify the enemy tribe.
Envy: That other tribe has nice stuff that they were only able to get by exploiting you.
Abdication of personal responsibility: Your situation is not the result of your own decisions and behavior. It's that other tribe, which have created the entire system to hold you back It's their fault, not yours.
Hatred. You should hate that tribe, because they are out to get you.
Self-righteousness: You are right and just to want to harm that tribe. You can burn their stuff down and feel good about it.
Laziness: You don't have to make any more effort to determine the truth, or evaluate ideas based on merit. That stuff is hard. Instead, your truth is your "lived experience," and anyone who disagrees with that is your oppressor.
Narcissism: Your public denouncing, cancelling, shrieking, chanting empty slogans, and other low-effort signaling draws attention to you to let everyone know what a wonderful person you are.
More laziness: After all the white supremacist patriarchal cis-heteronormative capitalist institutions (i.e. Western Civilization) have been completely destroyed, a new utopian society will magically pop up in its place, and everyone will finally be equal, and all your needs will be provided for.
Enlightenment values, however, are more challenging:
You are free to do what you want, but you are accountable for your actions. If you take risks, you may face negative consequences.
Nobody owes you anything. Life isn't fair. You have the right to pursue happiness, but that doesn't mean you'll get it, even if you work really hard.
You'll have to use reason to evaluate ideas and find the truth. You may even experience uncertainty. This can be uncomfortable.
Others are free to express ideas you might not like. You can't just say "you're oppressing me!" and expect that they will be silenced. You might actually have to pit your ideas against their and run the risk of being proven wrong.
No end state. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Whew, that sounds like hard work! Think I'll just go on Twitter and call everybody I don't like a racist.
Wokeism and nihilism go hand in hand. Its a zero sum game. Douglas Murray also brought up the excellent idea that societal fatigue is a major factor in this. Western superiority has all but killed the foundations upon which it's empire was laid. How long can a people keep going when they no longer believe in what made them exceptional?
Wokeism flourishes under woke power: woke governors, mayors, DAs, cops, feds, bureaucrats - ensure woke criminals enjoy anarcho-tyrrany.
Then woke propagandists: Media "journalists", "actors", "game devs", "bipastisan" "activist" institutions like ACLU & SPLC, "professors", "teachers" - ensure everybody is fed the woke paranoid delusion of imaginary nazis everywhere.
The first step is to fire them all.