Thanks for your thoughts- there is a quasi-religious element to all this but as I will explain in an essay to follow it is more an ideological rather than a religious narrative.
Great article. I am looking forward to more of your thoughts on the subject.
Personally, I see the growth of "cancel culture" (as opposed to its origins) as being partly enabled by the decline of religion in Western societies- it's far easier to fill a vacuum than an already occupied space. The use (or more accurately, deliberate misuse) of language common to Christianity, (kindness, tolerance, empathy etc) is perhaps no coincidence, but rather a clever subliminal hijacking. The C of E for example has seemed particularly susceptible. There is definitely a quasi-religious element to woke ideology: the suspension of reason while defending faith is typical of any other form of religious zealotry.This perhaps also explains the bizarre and counter-intuitive "successor ideology" tolerance for Islam. Cancel culture itself is effectively woke sharia, especially with regards to blasphemy.
Some interesting ideas here, thank you. It's certainly startlingly clear that as a society we are suffering a crisis of narrative, giving rise not only to the ambiguity about labels that you rightly identify, but also a corollary loss of meaning for the individuals who must exist within this amorphous mess of a post-cultural world.
However, while I have some sympathy with your description of this problem as being one that has grown over the last 100 years, I think we have a much larger problem on our hands than that. We have a wholesale systems breakdown, that spans both culture and economics.
Put simply, my thesis is this: capitalist cultures, which all are by now, are expansive by nature. Capitalism requires growth, and growth can only take place if there are new markets to expand into. Roughly 100 years ago, we hit our geographical limit on new markets, signifying the end of the Age of Empire. Within the next 15 years, the emerging markets will also be gone, and at that point we will reach a hard singularity on the geographical extent of market growth. Technological advancement will make up some of that loss, but globalisation is now at a point at which market saturation is hit extremely quickly for new products and technologies.
This by necessity puts all the big power blocks on war footing with one another; as they can no longer move into new markets, they MUST compete over market share. This is what we are already beginning to see, which is why maneuvers over oil are having such significant impacts, and it also happens over culture as each power bloc seeks to establish hegemony.
What we need is a new paradigm completely, one not based on growth, market domination, or globalisation, but based instead on free market radical localism: multiple specialist communities engaging in balanced trade, kept in equilibrium by the system.
I am exploring these ideas in my substack https://howtosurvivetheapocalypse.substack.com/, in particular in the posts: 'On Totalitarianism' Parts I & II, although there is plenty more to come.
Dear Allen
Thanks for your thoughts- there is a quasi-religious element to all this but as I will explain in an essay to follow it is more an ideological rather than a religious narrative.
Dear Donna
Thanks for getting in touch - you raise some important points that I need to thinks about. best wishes
Frank
Great article. I am looking forward to more of your thoughts on the subject.
Personally, I see the growth of "cancel culture" (as opposed to its origins) as being partly enabled by the decline of religion in Western societies- it's far easier to fill a vacuum than an already occupied space. The use (or more accurately, deliberate misuse) of language common to Christianity, (kindness, tolerance, empathy etc) is perhaps no coincidence, but rather a clever subliminal hijacking. The C of E for example has seemed particularly susceptible. There is definitely a quasi-religious element to woke ideology: the suspension of reason while defending faith is typical of any other form of religious zealotry.This perhaps also explains the bizarre and counter-intuitive "successor ideology" tolerance for Islam. Cancel culture itself is effectively woke sharia, especially with regards to blasphemy.
Thanks for all the great work you are doing.
^ period sorry if anyone was upset
Some interesting ideas here, thank you. It's certainly startlingly clear that as a society we are suffering a crisis of narrative, giving rise not only to the ambiguity about labels that you rightly identify, but also a corollary loss of meaning for the individuals who must exist within this amorphous mess of a post-cultural world.
However, while I have some sympathy with your description of this problem as being one that has grown over the last 100 years, I think we have a much larger problem on our hands than that. We have a wholesale systems breakdown, that spans both culture and economics.
Put simply, my thesis is this: capitalist cultures, which all are by now, are expansive by nature. Capitalism requires growth, and growth can only take place if there are new markets to expand into. Roughly 100 years ago, we hit our geographical limit on new markets, signifying the end of the Age of Empire. Within the next 15 years, the emerging markets will also be gone, and at that point we will reach a hard singularity on the geographical extent of market growth. Technological advancement will make up some of that loss, but globalisation is now at a point at which market saturation is hit extremely quickly for new products and technologies.
This by necessity puts all the big power blocks on war footing with one another; as they can no longer move into new markets, they MUST compete over market share. This is what we are already beginning to see, which is why maneuvers over oil are having such significant impacts, and it also happens over culture as each power bloc seeks to establish hegemony.
What we need is a new paradigm completely, one not based on growth, market domination, or globalisation, but based instead on free market radical localism: multiple specialist communities engaging in balanced trade, kept in equilibrium by the system.
I am exploring these ideas in my substack https://howtosurvivetheapocalypse.substack.com/, in particular in the posts: 'On Totalitarianism' Parts I & II, although there is plenty more to come.