As Woke Falls, What Rises?

In the heat of the Great Awokening, when it burned its brightest, many on the side of Reality tried their hand at defining woke. My own effort was a stubborn and hostile denial of Reality. That wasn’t wrong, but it is now obvious it is woefully incomplete.

Woke flamed out, many say, in November, at least in the States. But this does not mean that DIE is dead, nor should we infer the impulses which created woke are suffering.

Those impulses are the gift of the misnamed Enlightenment. Once again, as David Stove emphasized, the three axioms of the Enlightenment were: secularism, egalitarianism, and utilitarianism. All three are still with us, and the theorems derived from them are in full force.

Woke paid obeisance to all three pillars, but it gave the greatest weight by far to egalitarianism. Which, now that the pressure has abated, is easier to see. Which leads to a New & Improved! woke definition: rapid acceleration of Enlightenment theorems, with a ridiculous emphasis on egalitarianism. Not sonorous or catchy, but accurate.

That woke is blunted does not mean that egalitarianism has been abandoned, nor are the other legs shortened. It’s that we’re moving into a slight relief phase (as seen in this chart). Even the Devil has to catch his breath. And “conservatives” have to have time to catch up to begin surrendering gracefully and beautifully.

Take, for an example, the Manhattan Institute, the Up and Coming “conservative” organization. It hates DIE, a.k.a. woke egalitarianism, yet it still holds with egalitarianism per se, and it has surrendered on the other fronts: it hired a porn actress to be a reporter because (I was told) no “conservatives” could be found who could do the job, and its leader offered congratulations to a man pretending to the married to another man after the pair purchased a baby from some unknown source, this now being a “conservative” position.

Egalitarianism is still rife; it remains the law of the land (and other countries are still woke). Recall that you must have Victim quotas or you can be officially charged with a crime, even if you are fully innocent of non-egalitarian thoughts. Forces are right now asking whoever the President is to sign the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution, which placement would in time destroy the last vestiges of Quality. The ‘E’ in Equality stands for exorcise.

Secularism? If you want one eleven-second video that sums up the totally of secularism’s conquest, this one will do.

Still, again at least in the States, the lancing of the woke boil does allow us time for reflection. And to ask, what comes after?

Secularism was of course the first bloody victory of the Enlightenment. Transcendence is now a minority view, which most believers can’t bring themselves to believe sufficiently. This is a not a plea against hope. Recall it is likely even Talleyrand converted to his faith at the end. Equality was the second terrible victory. It has wreaked its ravages, as you and I, dear reader, have seen over the years, and as the Twentieth Century proves, most viciously with enforced community of property.

Since no tenet of the Enlightenment is denied by elites, and there remains no reason to push hard against religion, which isn’t pushing back, and there is woke egalitarian fatigue, we might guess it is utilitarianism’s turn to shine.

My guess is that we will see utilitarianism’s rise as a sort of blessed relief. Until it is inevitably realized that not all share the same definition of “happiness”. Utilitarianism will likely exacerbate the Expertocracy, though the center of power of Experts might change for a time from government and academia to oligarchs, at least because the two former entities were woke bastions and people are sick of them. And anyway, an oligarchy is a natural thing.

Like the other axioms, utilitarianism has been with us since the Enlightenment, and has lately been out in force. A prime example is the covid panic. Experts, Experts everywhere, with not a thought to think. Scientific models told us what was best to do. Members in the Cult of Safety First! are utilitarians through and through. Remember: the great majority now surrender to Experts when they experience, or are made to experience, hersterical panicked fear.

AI is another choice example. All models only say what they are told to say, and AI is model only saying what its programmers tell it to say. Yet we already hear people say things like “According to Grok…” They see an entity, where there is only dumb code, which is classified as an Expert, giving the approved correct answers, to include those given in questions of right and wrong. The obvious danger is that people will forget, as they are already forgetting, answers reflect opinions and sentiments of the coders. Have you seen the programmers?

Maximizing economic gain is utilitarian, contrasted with shared wealth, which is egalitarian. There would be a conflict between two these Enlightenment pillars except that utilitarianism promises increases material goods for all. It doesn’t matter if this promise is delivered: it is what is promised and believed that matters. Anyway, political arguments are now mostly cast in economic terms, which is utilitarian.

We were reminded of all this by comments Marc Andreessen made on the fading of woke:

My theory: The US experiences generational waves of a form of secularized puritan Great Awakening, continuing the prior pattern of religious Protestant awakenings. The waves hit every 20-30 years. Four in the last century: actual Communism in the 1920’s-30’s (“Red Decade”), 1960’s New Left/”the movement”, late 80’s-early 90’s “political correctness”, and 2013-2024 “wokeness” (and its Valley offshoot EA). The details evolve with the times, but the core is collectivism based on radical egalitarianism. Each wave is incubated by the commanding heights of the intellectual and cultural elite, transmitted by the culture industries of universities/press/Hollywood and now tech, and then burns through society until finally expiring corrupt, exhausted, and lame. After, we emerge blinking into the sunlight and try to forget we were ever part of it. My guess is the next wave hits mid-late 2040’s, hopefully after a long run of pride, confidence, vitality, and national spirit.

Within this context, it makes sense that tech was the first major industry down the rabbit hole. Tech is connected tightly to the elite worlds of the universities, press, and Hollywood. In this most recent wave, tech was also a primary carrier of the wave–computers, the Internet, social media. We were the perfect memetic petri dish for the earliest stages of the frenzy. For this reason, it also makes sense that tech is the first major industry climbing out of the rabbit hole. We’ve been in the frenzy longest; we’re the earliest to end up corrupt, exhausted, and lame. We also pride ourselves on being on the leading edge, and the leading edge is climbing out. If my theory is correct, every other major industry will shortly follow us out.

Radical egalitarianism is woke. Equality stays with us, the acceleration lessens. So my guess is the wave Andresseen predicts hits, led as he says by Tech, but in the form of utilitarianism, not forgetting another name for utilitarianism is scientism, a philosophy which nicely incorporates secularism, too. As long as the riches promised by utilitarianism are claimed to be shared by all, strict egalitarians will accept it.

Tech leads in AI by definition. Transhumanism, which is what medicine is becoming, is a direct result of utilitarian thinking, and premised on secularism. Tech leads here, and will continue to do so, away from academia (for the most part). Moral questions on “playing God” will be heard, but all will be resolved by the answer “We are now gods because we can do this.”

Arch-utilitarian Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon is upon us, also led by Tech. Almost every person carries a tracking device voluntarily and knowingly. All activity online is known to Tech, and surely to the government. Cameras, drones, sensors of every kind proliferate. The TSA was created in yet another idiot panic, and their scanners grow increasingly intrusive. All Tech.

The arguments to justify all these are that they are for your own good, usually economic good, but often health good. Health must now be "optimal", or nearly. So we make the utilitarian decision to prevent or kill monetarily inconvenient lives before they escape the womb, or we end our lives early lest we suffer. This latter tendency will increase.

Never, or never that I can recall since I was a boy, are justifications for elite actions cast in terms of spiritual good. Education might seem the exception to this, but learning is cast as a means to the end of economic good. Who in power says "Read these old books because they will make you a more interesting and better person?"

I pass by this one quickly, it being obvious, but we are utilitarian in our dress. Even billionaires wear jeans and t-shirts. Expensive ones, because they have to signal their wealth, but, alas, not their worth.

We are already utilitarians. Just as we are already secularists and egalitarians. Because there are no battles to be fought for secularism, and we tire of rampant outrageous mouth-breathing egalitarianism (but not of Equality per se), utilitarianism will assume prominence even if it remains at its same level. Yet I think it is clear it will not, and that utilitarian forces will only increase.

The full consequences of this we can explore another day.

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