It is extraordinary how quickly things have changed, and your book deserves some of the credit. It is important to remember that, though DEI is rapidly being dismantled in the federal government, it is much less clear how much it has been dismantled in the other institutions in society. My guess is that there is still a great deal of work to do.
'But I forgot to add a chapter saying “Oh, by the way, don’t dismantle American science in the name of Zionism and try to deport Asian girls studying in Ivy League schools who have been in the United States since they were little kids.”'
Law is boring, while the religious idea of wokeness is exciting. Wokeness is the promise of something new, or a demonic force to rally against. People love to hate Epstein, for example, because he provides the very easy black-and-white vision of the world that there are pedophiles running everything, and if we just "name them," we can save the world. This is more simplistic and titillating than thinking carefully about an impersonal system of laws, regulations, and incentives. The phenomenon of wokeness, as well as the anti-woke backlash, have both been hysterical.
Katherine Dee's work on fandoms and self-deception is relevant here. Ideologies are like teen boy bands from the 1990s. You could get teenage girls to go out in the streets screaming for NSYNC, and now you can get them to march with BLM. But while these sort of cults of personality have been cyclical since Elvis (perhaps going back further to Vaudeville and the Circus, or the political cult of Washington), what is distinct about wokeness is how a-personal it is. There is no king of queen of wokeness.
In this sense, wokeness does share some aspects with early Protestantism, especially the Congregationalists, which was more focused on doctrine than on cultural heroes. Trump presented the exact opposite tendency. There was a logic to the argument that the excesses of wokeness could only be moderated by an alliance with the personality cult of Trump, but now it has developed its own dogmas around immigration and tariffs, divorced from reality.
Richard, this is apropos of nothing, but your criticism of "ideaism" made me think of a review I read a few months ago about the works of a scholar named Bernard Yack, who is basically the "ideaist" par excellence -- I thought this touched on topics you (or your readers) might find interesting: https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-longing-for-total-revolution
More generally, I've been archive-binging the Psmiths and basically every blogpost they have is fantastic. Been a while since I've discovered something so good, and I'd imagine the material would appeal to lots of Hananiacs. (Basically just lots and lots of book reviews from a far-right but non-insane perspective, but just exquisite taste in precisely what books they choose to review.)
...You need to go a bit further into the 'law influences culture' concept Richard, to include analysis of how the judiciary acts. In particular, how the feminization of the legal profession has advanced the subjective at the expense of objective, i.e. "concern" for the tree at the expense of the forest.
I think you're overstating the extent to which DEI/woke has been eliminated. At the universities that I am aware of, the DEI apparatus remains expansive and intact. A few titles have been changed and a few files taken offline, but all the same biased search procedures, DEI requirements for courses, DEI in promotion and tenure... all still there alongside more annoying everyday reminders to "include your pronouns!" They just don't trumpet them as loudly as they used to externally.
The key thing here is that personnel is policy. The people being laid off by universities right now are mostly lab techs and support staff. A few places have dismissed DEI staff, but most seem to have quietly moved them into "student affairs" positions. The radical faculty in particular are still there, still in charge, and still providing veto points on any type of reform at the vast majority of schools.
It remains to be seen if a dramatically pared-down DoE and a "fight everything, everywhere, all at once" DoJ can actually elicit major changes nationally, especially given recent unfavorable court rulings on the new "Dear Colleague" letter on DEI.
It is extraordinary how quickly things have changed, and your book deserves some of the credit. It is important to remember that, though DEI is rapidly being dismantled in the federal government, it is much less clear how much it has been dismantled in the other institutions in society. My guess is that there is still a great deal of work to do.
'But I forgot to add a chapter saying “Oh, by the way, don’t dismantle American science in the name of Zionism and try to deport Asian girls studying in Ivy League schools who have been in the United States since they were little kids.”'
Pure gold.
Law is boring, while the religious idea of wokeness is exciting. Wokeness is the promise of something new, or a demonic force to rally against. People love to hate Epstein, for example, because he provides the very easy black-and-white vision of the world that there are pedophiles running everything, and if we just "name them," we can save the world. This is more simplistic and titillating than thinking carefully about an impersonal system of laws, regulations, and incentives. The phenomenon of wokeness, as well as the anti-woke backlash, have both been hysterical.
Katherine Dee's work on fandoms and self-deception is relevant here. Ideologies are like teen boy bands from the 1990s. You could get teenage girls to go out in the streets screaming for NSYNC, and now you can get them to march with BLM. But while these sort of cults of personality have been cyclical since Elvis (perhaps going back further to Vaudeville and the Circus, or the political cult of Washington), what is distinct about wokeness is how a-personal it is. There is no king of queen of wokeness.
In this sense, wokeness does share some aspects with early Protestantism, especially the Congregationalists, which was more focused on doctrine than on cultural heroes. Trump presented the exact opposite tendency. There was a logic to the argument that the excesses of wokeness could only be moderated by an alliance with the personality cult of Trump, but now it has developed its own dogmas around immigration and tariffs, divorced from reality.
About the second point we don't know what the backlash will be yet as it is too early.
Congrats on being correct on DEI, and being ahead of the curve on it.
Trump’s day 1 policies against DEI were excellent. It’s sadly one of the few policy ideas that I’ve enjoyed about Trump 2.0 thus far.
Richard, this is apropos of nothing, but your criticism of "ideaism" made me think of a review I read a few months ago about the works of a scholar named Bernard Yack, who is basically the "ideaist" par excellence -- I thought this touched on topics you (or your readers) might find interesting: https://www.thepsmiths.com/p/review-the-longing-for-total-revolution
More generally, I've been archive-binging the Psmiths and basically every blogpost they have is fantastic. Been a while since I've discovered something so good, and I'd imagine the material would appeal to lots of Hananiacs. (Basically just lots and lots of book reviews from a far-right but non-insane perspective, but just exquisite taste in precisely what books they choose to review.)
...You need to go a bit further into the 'law influences culture' concept Richard, to include analysis of how the judiciary acts. In particular, how the feminization of the legal profession has advanced the subjective at the expense of objective, i.e. "concern" for the tree at the expense of the forest.
I think you're overstating the extent to which DEI/woke has been eliminated. At the universities that I am aware of, the DEI apparatus remains expansive and intact. A few titles have been changed and a few files taken offline, but all the same biased search procedures, DEI requirements for courses, DEI in promotion and tenure... all still there alongside more annoying everyday reminders to "include your pronouns!" They just don't trumpet them as loudly as they used to externally.
The key thing here is that personnel is policy. The people being laid off by universities right now are mostly lab techs and support staff. A few places have dismissed DEI staff, but most seem to have quietly moved them into "student affairs" positions. The radical faculty in particular are still there, still in charge, and still providing veto points on any type of reform at the vast majority of schools.
It remains to be seen if a dramatically pared-down DoE and a "fight everything, everywhere, all at once" DoJ can actually elicit major changes nationally, especially given recent unfavorable court rulings on the new "Dear Colleague" letter on DEI.
I think it's 100% to stick up for yourself (agree nobody else is going to do it), and that your book was ahead of its time!