Incompetence + Arrogance = Woke - Victor Davis Hansen

[Geee]

American Greatness

We know the nature of mass hysterias in history, and how they can overwhelm and paralyze what seem to be stable societies.  

We know the roots and origins of the cult of wokeness.  

And we know, too, how such insanity—from the Salem witch trials to Jacobinism to McCarthyism—can spread, despite alienating most of the population, through fear and the threat of personal ruin or worse. These are the dark sides of the tulip, hula-hoop, and pet-rock fads, the mass obsessions so suited to past affluent Western societies.  

 

But does wokeism serve another purpose as well? Specifically, does it either hide preexisting incompetence or fuel it?  

In the last 18 months, we have seen most of our major institutions go woke and spend considerable amounts of time, capital, and labor on what might be called “commissarism.” Yet in their zeal to rectify society in general and sermonize, virtue signal, pontificate, and perform to the public, many institutions are increasingly failing at what they were established to do. 

Of course, public servants have long suffered the “Bloomberg effect”—focusing on misdemeanors to virtue signal competence as penance for failing to solve the existential crises. If you cannot clear New York City of snow in a timely manner, then lecture the trapped on everything from global warming to the dangers of super-sized soft drinks. Yet wokeism is a bit different since it now pervades our societies as a pandemic of its own. 

[Valin]

@Geee

Incompetence + Arrogance = Woke - Victor Davis Hansen

 

As someone who has dealt with The Woke on Youtube for the last couple of years, I'd say Victor Pretty much Nails it. I would make one addition Ignorance. As I have mentioned before, its not that they are Stupid (no more so than the non-woke) its that they really don't know much. Ask them how often they read (say) National Review, Commentary, Reason, or any other non woke source, or ask them just how many Center/Right, Right Wing people they know...Nothing, or they will say their parents.

 

Now I'll read the article.

[Valin]

Quote

The point is not to berate our institutions, but to warn them.  Either their abilities to carry out their assigned tasks are becoming diminished by Nineteen Eighty-Four-like wokism, or they are using ideological camouflage simply to mask their unaccountability—and their increasing incompetence.  

 

Name an institution you hold in high regard or trust today? Because I cannot. Character matters, and in this regard IMO we have taken our eye off the ball in the last 30-40 years. Or maybe the lack of character has always been there, we just see it better thanks to Hubris on the part of The Woke and that little silicon chip allows us see it better.