Why is it that “wokeness” has spread so rapidly throughout America — academia of course, but also our cultural institutions, religion, the media, and business? Ask almost anyone who is prominent in them about, say, “systemic racism” and you will get pretty much the same rote answer. You probably won’t hear anyone cast doubt upon it.
Writing on his Substack, Professor Glenn Reynolds offers some very sharp thinking about that. He argues that we have a “monoculture” in that our ruling class has been bred in educational institutions that imbue its members with a similar mindset. And just as monoculture in agriculture is susceptible to disastrous results, so too with human minds.
Reynolds writes, When Elon Musk referred to the dangers of the ‘woke mind virus,’ he knew exactly what he was talking about. Ideas can be contagious, and can be viewed as analogous to viruses, entities that reproduce by infecting individuals and coopting those individuals into spreading them to others.”
True.
He continues:
Our ruling class is particularly vulnerable to mind viruses for several reasons. First, it is a monoculture, so that what is persuasive to one member is likely to be persuasive to many. Second, it suffers from deep and widespread status anxiety — not least because most of its members have status, but few real accomplishments to rely on — and thus requires constant reassurance in the form of peer acceptance, reassurance that is generally achieved by repeating whatever the popular people are saying already. And third, it has few real deeply held values, which might otherwise provide guard rails of a sort against believing crazy things.
Can we get out of this monoculture before it ruins everything?
Reynolds suggests, inter alia, that it would be most helpful if people had to again do their jobs, such as profitably running companies rather than indulging in intellectual fads that make them popular in the media but waste money that isn’t actually theirs.
I would add that we need to break free of the notion that having graduated from an “elite” college or university makes you wiser and better educated than others.
Read the whole thing — you’ll be glad you did.