Det var en gång en politisk rörelse som motsatte sig just Vietnamkriget, eftersom just USA tillät journalister att verka fritt i just deras krig, varför krigets visserligen fasansfulla fasor blev lite extra exponerade just i detta krig (som förövrigt troligen var det mindre fasansfulla av de konflikter som härjat landat under lång tid, senast i form av Indokinakriget Vietnam-Frankrike). Den politiska rörelsen sög även näring ur kontinentalfilosofin med rötter i Nietzsche, och fann snart att samhällskritik var en framkomlig väg ur det modernistiska projektet.
Eftersom världen emellertid är full av tråkigheter så kom stora delar av den postkoloniala samhällskritiska rörelsen snart att lessna på att endast se allt i Skitets Färg. Man insåg att sinnet förgiftades av all negativitet, så man började istället kurera innehållet i sin filterbubbla genom att gå naken på festival; ha blommig kläder; lyssna på vad som vid den tiden ansågs vara bra musik; upprepa kärleksbudskap; anamma österländska traditioner med fokus på jag-upplösning; och ta psykedeliska droger.
Det var en gång en politisk rörelse som motsatte sig just Jämställdhetsmyndighetens definition av Mäns våld mot kvinnor, att våldtäktsmän ska ha betalt, samt den oansvariga politik som lett till att skapa dagens Södertälje. Den politiska rörelsen sög även näring ur den analytiska (anglosaxiska) filosofin med rötter i upplysningstraditionen, och fann snart att det var lekande lätt att göra slarvsylta av identitärernas låtsasargumentation.
Eftersom världen emellertid är full av identitärer och låtsasargumentation så kom stora delar av den post-postkoloniala samhällskritiska rörelsen snart att lessna på att se allt i Skitets Färg. Man insåg att sinnet förgiftades av all negativitet, så man började istället kurera innehållet i sin filterbubbla genom att gå naken på festival; ha lika roliga kläder som Alexander Bard; lyssna på vad som vid den tiden ansågs vara bra musik; upprepa kärleksbudskap; anamma österländska traditioner med fokus på jag-upplösning; och ta psykedeliska droger.
***
Ingen vet längre skillnaden på ett hipsterskägg och ett MRM-skägg, och mången sökande själ har förresten råkat vandra vidare till tyngre droger via tantra eller meditation. Ironiskt nog står neo-hippien för en slags överbryggande funktion i kulturkriget, med sina förvirrande buddhistiska svastikor och egocentriska tankar om egots upplösning.Nu har verkligheten hunnit ifatt mig.
I no longer feel the same burning need to criticize wokeness
It would be presumptuous to say I was the first liberal to criticize wokeness, so I’ll retreat to the less arrogant claim that my anti-wokeness was autochthonous. If other people were saying the same things, I didn’t hear about them. I invented it independently.
My experience was basically that the commanding heights of society had suddenly gone insane and were saying crazy stuff, and literally nobody was pushing back against this. I hated having to get involved, but somebody had to and no one else would, so I accepted the cost to my mental health and kicked the hornet’s nest.
I was an early adopter here for two reasons:
First: in basically every other way, I am an extremely unfashionable person. But in this case, somehow I ended up near the top of the barberpole model of fashion. I felt like all my friends were social justice warriors, back when other people described barely knowing one or two. So I got annoyed with them early and rebelled against them early.
Second: I hate conforming. Hate hate hate it. As Mencken said, “it’s not worth an intelligent person’s time to be in the majority, by definition there are already enough people to do that.” Expressing a majority viewpoint feels like punching down, or like kicking an underdog. I’ll do it if I have to, because you should still defend the truth even when it’s popular, but I don’t enjoy it. So back when it seemed like everyone was an SJW (which apparently was earlier for me than for anyone else!!) my natural inclination was to push back.
But it seems like I must still be near the top of the barberpole - because while everyone else is freaking out about wokeness, I’m starting to feel like all my friends are anti-woke. Who’s woke anymore? Are there really still woke people? Other than all corporations, every government agency, and all media properties, I mean. Those don’t count. Any real people? I guess I know one or two SJWs. But I also know one or two Catholics. Doesn’t mean they’re not the intellectual equivalent of out-of-place artifacts.
And that means my natural I-hate-saying-whatever-the-majority-says kicks in whenever I’m tempted to criticize wokeness. I could write about something something critical race theory in school. But first of all, Jesse Singal, Freddie de Boer, and Bari Weiss have probably already written things on it and they probably all did a better job than I would. Second of all, probably the electorate has already figured out it’s bad and is planning to vote out everyone involved. Third of all, do I really want to spend my life reminding other unwoke people that dumbing down math classes and using the extra time to force kids into classes where they chant prayers to the Aztec gods instead is actually bad? Don’t get me wrong, it is bad. But Cicero had Catiline, and Lincoln had Stephen Douglas. I’m hardly the equal of either, but I would like to think I’m cool enough to deserve a worthier foil than the Aztec-prayers-in-school crowd, who everyone else also hates.
Also: in 2010, I didn’t believe in God, but I think I mostly avoided being one of those loud smug atheists who everyone hated. I looked at an extremely false and oppressive philosophy that large institutions were forced to pay lip service to, and I thought “well, this sucks, but maybe I don’t have to spend literally all my time rehashing the same critiques of it that every other thinking person has, to an audience of people who are already convinced and have heard them all a thousand times”. I feel like whatever personality quirk of mine made that decision saved me a lot of retroactive embarrassment, and I want to nurture and encourage it. So here we are.
Det är inte bara ditt lokala killgäng. Det är även din globala bloggare.
Det är zeitgeist.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar