Western liberalism-Hist of pernicious ideas-Wokism
Chandrabhan .
P&L, D2C, Channel & Product strategy, Growth Manager, Emerging Markets, Consumer goods, IOT, Sports, Behavioural Economist
In the history of world some ideas have been epoch defining and I see many "Intellectual" types glorifying them on their speeches even after centuries i.e., French revolution. In the newer vicious ideas (strictly my view), wokism takes the cake to have come out of a culture-less, heavily sexualised business corporation, commonly called as America.
Once idealistic about American ideals and spirit of freedom, the events in past 20 years have convinced me that when faced with critical social issues like drug addiction, America’s atomized, deracinated, and dispirited society has found itself with “an insurmountable problem” because it no longer has any coherent conceptual grounds from which to mount any resistance. Wokism is an outcome of destruction of religious, family, social obligations and control.
In universities and Political establishments, nonprofit organizations and even corporations, a new set of ideas about race, gender, and sexual orientation has gained huge influence. Attitudes to these ideas—which are commonly called “woke,” though I prefer a more neutral term, the “identity confusion”—have split into two camps: those who blame them for all of America’s (western liberalism) ills and those who defend them, largely uncritically.
Militant idea of #individual as supreme with no duties & obligations. We must teach our kids better if we want to sustain the civilization. Western elite have multiple partners and children, middle class, none. They have destroyed need for family , the heart and smallest of economic unit, pushed the idea of sensory pleasure as supreme achievement and a RIGHT. Result? No marriage, no social stability and rarely any kids. Western states filled this void becoming a parental welfare state.
People like me (conservative socially but economically liberal) have been derided by newspapers for calling his ideology as "Cultural marxism" as i think Wokism has substituted identity categories such as race for the economic category of class but still aims at the same old goal of communist revolution. They invoke wokeness to oppose anything they dislike i.e., Family values, nationalism, Hinduism, X'nity & Judaism
Moral agency , Choice & Individualism
Western system of? criminal justice and torts is built upon a generally accepted fact: reasonably healthy and mentally fit humans have personal choice in all moral matters. People are free, the system postulates, to abide by the law, or to break the law. Free to do good, or to do evil. They have a choice and the ability to choose. This has been the teaching of Judaism, Christianity, the Enlightenment.
Judaism and Christianity fervently teach that change is possible. In Judaism, Jews can practice t’shuva, repentance, turning from evil and pursuing that which is good (Moses Maimonedes, known as the Rambam, wrote the classic texts on t’shuva.) Christian repentance involves faith in the tenants of Christianity, and allowing G-d by agency of G-d’s Spirit, to transform the believer from within. One of the focuses of the Pauline Epistles is to be transformed, conformed to “the image of Christ.”? Again, this is a choice, the true believer can allow herself or himself to be transformed or not.
Hinduism and its offshoots i.e., Buddhism, Khalsa and Jainism lays so much focus on Self that it declared 10000 years ago ??? ???? ???! meaning…the truth that you seek is you. All that pervades is Brahamana - ????? ??????? ??????? … All that exists or doesn't, can see or can't, is Eshwara.
John Locke, the great enlightenment thinker and founder of classical liberalism, had quite? bit to say about free will.
“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions…” (emphasis on the natural law and individual freedom).
“In the state of nature, every one has a right to his own person, and to the goods he has acquired by his own industry, and the fruits of his own labour…”
Locke was influenced by the principle of lex rex, the law is king (rather than “the king is the law”), and as such, we humans are capable of abiding by laws or breaking them.
#Wokism blatantly contradicts both freedom and human moral agency. Simply put, wokism teaches that we are prisoners of our skin color & our belief in God . If you are a believer (in case of Hindus/ Buddhists or Judaism ) or of white skin, you are oppressors, always and forever. No amount of repentance, reform, nor good works towards people of color can change the fact that white folk are and will always be oppressors. Same is extended to Dhramik faiths starting with Hinduism, Buddhism & Shinto.
Zero moral agency is involved. One cannot cease to be an oppressor by repentance, charity, or good deeds of any sort. Islam & POC (people of color) are always and forever victims. No amount of education, achievement, power, or prestige can change that status, is always the victim
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Individualism in Modern avtar
The real cell of society in the United States is the individual. This is so because the cell most foundational (per Aristotle) to society, “the family, has disintegrated.” Meanwhile, in the American system, “everything has a dual nature, and the glamour of high commodification abounds. Human flesh, sex, knowledge, politics, power, and law can all become the target of commodification.” This “commodification, in many ways, corrupts society and leads to a number of serious social problems.” In the end, “the American economic system has created human loneliness” as its foremost product, along with spectacular inequality. As a result, “nihilism has become the American way, which is a fatal shock to cultural development and the American spirit.”
"America faces an “unstoppable undercurrent of crisis” produced by its societal contradictions, including between rich and poor, white and black, democratic and oligarchic power, egalitarianism and class privilege, individual rights and collective responsibilities, cultural traditions and the solvent of liquid modernity."
But while Americans can perceive that they are faced with “intricate social and cultural problems,” they “tend to think of them as scientific and technological problems” to be solved separately. This gets them nowhere, in my opinion, because their problems are in fact all inextricably interlinked and have the same root cause: a radical, nihilistic individualism at the heart of modern American liberalism.
Woke and trans don’t fight for nation states, busy taking care of self and trier rights, migrants busy making money (have barely any interest in wars), it is the native who Fights for the land his ancestors were born in. Full of disgust they will not join forces in current state.
Nihilism is the Meta Problem. Nietzsche wrote this on the first page of his last book (1889). A vague sense that nothing really matters. You need to scrub this feeling out of your soul with as much aggression and venom as you can muster. Nihilism is the master psyop. The most powerless creature in the world is not an ant, not the grounded plant, but a nihilist. The ant and the plant will automatically fight to preserve themselves but this central instinct of life has been removed from the nihilist's toolkit. He is compromised beyond saving.
Those who tell you the world is worthless will, after you renounce it, rush in to rule. It's a power grab, plain and simple. This is why for Nietzsche, the way out of nihilism is not community service or "sacrifice" but Will To Power. A healthy controlling urge is the antidote. A standard movie trope: you only meet the villain's lackeys and side pieces at the beginning. Then there's a grand revelation of the main villain at the end. Nihilism is that main villain, and the movie is human history. He stands unmasked now, and the protagonist must fight.
Anyone who think that west prospered because of superiority of their ideas hv no clue. West prospered in last 500 years because they became masters or organized violence thanks to developments of ability to kill at distance - usage of gunpowder in throwing a metal thru pipe (Gun). It is the gun, drills and discipline around it that permitted (made it possible) to kill at a distance better than Bow and roving on horseback. Bigger gun.. bigger projectiles and basic idea is the same. This is where we lagged and by the time we caught up, west continued to up the game of killing at larger distance and larger scale. Industrial revolution- steam engine was another breakthrough that made it possible to transport troops (fresh) at large distances and fast.
This Russian war is bringing a balance where a traditional image of men I.e, bravery, honor, spirit of sacrifice for greater good May find some place again. Most hyperventilating and abusing Russia everyday for this war don’t understand that this war may have started the process of pushing American Knee from the neck of Europe. They realise that they have to manage on their own and American policies and radical ideas are destroying.
The feeling that you are puny next to deterministic historical forces or climate change or whatever. The feeling that the inside is more worthy of attention than the outside. The sense that your agency is limited. The instinct of surrender to fate. All nihilism. Reject fully
Quotes from the articles