The Path to Wokeism

Musings on the convoluted path that has been destroying western culture

Many thinking, good-hearted Americans and those in other Western nations are appalled at the state of western culture, which has to a fairly large extent been co-opted by the woke mob, radical Marxists and pro-terrorist young adults. How has this happened?

Having been more of an observer than a participant in society for over 70 years, I have experienced and noticed many things that I believe have contributed.  Among these are:

• Social engineering

• Unanticipated results of the Viet Nam draft

• The drive for universal college education

• Multi-culturalism and so-called diversity

• The self-esteem movement

• The weakening of religion

• The concentration of media into a few huge companies

Social Engineering

The 60’s, when I was in high school and college, seemed to begin this trend, which coincided with the social engineering that has been practiced in the USA in a major way since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

The big problem with social engineering is its suddenness. When change occurs slowly, there is time and awareness for adaptation. But when it is sudden and was preceded by the heavy social indoctrination necessary for its implementation, many people are heavily invested in the details of the plan. The plan cannot be changed, regardless of how it unfolds in reality. Changes would mean that the plan’s authors and supporters, both in the media and government, would appear to be fools.

Unanticipated Results of the Viet Nam Draft

My experience was in California, where my family moved in 1959. Then as now, very liberal California led the way for the rest of the country.

In 1964 the USA began drafting young men to serve in the Viet Nam war. By the school year 1965-1966, when I was a junior at San Francisco State College (now University), the draft was in full swing, although it would be another few years before the draft lottery began. SFSC was well known as a teacher’s college; it also had well-regarded departments of social work and divinity.

Some young men avoided the draft by fleeing to Canada. For men who wanted to avoid the war in Viet Nam and remain in the USA, there were three easy alternatives. Teachers, social workers, and pastors, as well as students in those fields, were not drafted. Immediately, a high percentage of my male classmates transferred out of business, science, engineering and other majors to those programs.

If it happened at SFSC, it happened at colleges across the United States.

Just a handful of years later, laws regarding women’s study and occupations changed. What people do not realize is that as women were leaving social work and education for other professions, these left-wing idealogues filled social work and educational leadership positions that had previously been held by women and by men with true humanitarian outlooks. At the same time, a large cohort of graduates of seminaries were now also left-wing idealogues. These were not people with a humanitarian outlook. They were motivated purely by self-interest. Yet they became the vocal leaders, providing a nearly unanimous nihilistic, self-serving voice from three of the most influential, important-to-society careers.

The Drive for Universal College Education

Although student loans actually began in the late 1950’s, it wasn’t until about ten years later that they became common, and a few years after that until they became ubiquitous.[i] At the same time there began a push for universal higher education. Like other social engineering efforts, this had goals that sounded (at first) great:

• Economic egalitarianism, removing barriers to job opportunity based on economic status of family of origin, family connection, race, etc.;

• Social egalitarianism, a desire to raise everyone, regardless of prior barriers, to the educational level of elites;

• Opening the benefits of academic education to all, not just those for whom intellectual pursuit is easy.[ii]

Liberals gave the idea the usual thoughtless knee-jerk approval, but it was, pardon my crude language, idiotic. In the early 1980’s, at a party near Harvard Square, I overheard a professor pontificate about how every American high school grad should attend college. Then he changed the subject, asking his friend for the name of a good auto mechanic, because he couldn’t find one. He never saw the stupidity highlighted by his juxtaposition of these two issues.

Like other social engineering efforts, this failed miserably. Economic egalitarianism has certainly resulted from the push for college for everyone, partnering with guaranteed student loans. But this equality has been negative, not positive. As barely minted adults with no meaningful fiscal experience, millions of 18-year-olds have signed on for thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt.

Social egalitarianism also failed—catastrophically, in my experience. The obvious result has been that American students who prefer to work with their hands have been humiliated and made to believe they are losers.[iii]

Pushing all high school graduates toward college appears to me to be directly related to the huge rise in addictions. Alcohol and drug addiction started to skyrocket around the time that teachers and guidance counselors began pushing high schoolers toward college, labeling “loser” those who preferred physical or manual work. Pornography and gambling addictions skyrocketed after the Internet made access easy and reports of high numbers of drug deaths made drug addiction less appealing to educated people.

Addicts generally have some or all of eight personality traits: impulsivity, compulsivity, inability to handle stress, grandiose feelings, nonconformity, lack of patience, denial, and low self-esteem.[iv] It seems obvious that when people whose strengths are in manual skills are pushed into college and then into the world of white-collar office work, they would exhibit some if not many of these characteristics.

Men who either fail at college or end up struggling in careers for which they are unsuited probably have a daily stress load that is simply too heavy to handle with grace. Awareness of the differences between themselves and those more suited for the education and employment would result in a valid sense of nonconformity. Nearly everyone has a lack of patience for work that they do not enjoy. That lack of patience will likely flow into other areas of their lives and may result in impulsivity (needing a quick fix to make themselves feel okay).

Unsuitable work might also result in compulsivity; bringing to a job apprehension about the ability to succeed often results in rigidly following the rules. A person who feels out of control because he has trouble meeting job expectations might try to feel in control by forcing those in his family to obey him. All of these may result in domestic violence. People in jobs for which they are not suited will probably be only marginally successful or may fail altogether, hopping from job to job or career to career, often leaving a trail of broken marriages and abandoned children behind. In the last 40 years, society has also seen an epidemic of these problems.

Because intelligent people who prefer manual work have been pushed into intellectual work, less-intelligent men who would previously have found satisfying work in factories[v] have become second-rate or incompetent tradesmen, facing the identical stressors.

Women have faced the same issues, but they have pregnancy and the stay-at-home-mom path as an out from the academics-and-career race. Unrealistic expectations may be related to the very high rates of unwed mothers.  A chart based on birth data for 1990 and 2016 shows that unmarried women who achieved bachelor’s degrees or higher had far lower rates of motherhood than those with less education. Confidence leads to higher self-esteem and greater job and financial success, less anxiety, and probably fewer addictive behaviors. Thus, working backwards, a case can be made that high rates of unwed motherhood of women with limited education are partly a result of unrealistic academic expectations, denigration of formerly female occupations requiring manual skills such as seamstress and beautician, and concomitant feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety, impulsivity, and so forth—the traits shown by addicts, but handled in a uniquely female fashion.

Source: Vital Statistics birth data 1990, 2016[vi]

Multi-Culturalism and the Emphasis on Diversity

Colleges and universities took advantage of easy student loan money. Tuition, fees, room and board increased an average of 180% between 1980 and 2019-20.[vii] During the period between 1980 and 2020, the number of faculty increased 92%. This sounds like a lot, until you learn that during this period, the number of full-time administrators increased by 164% and other professionals increased 452%.[viii] This is how colleges and universities were able to grow large and powerful departments dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which have greatly increased racial distrust and perceived social inequality in the United States. These departments are also implicated in the extraordinarily high rates of antisemitic rhetoric and violence seen in the USA and western Europe since the beginning of the Hamas War in October 2023.

The emphasis on diversity came at a high social cost, one that has been ignored by all but the “fringe” conservatives: the slap-down of white boys. In the mid-1990’s I worked briefly as a copyeditor for a textbook packager. One of my instructions was to make sure that every illustration included an Asian, a professional-looking Black, a white woman, and a handicapped person. Who was missing? Of course, white males. Illustrators fixed this by making the handicapped person a white boy. In many other ways, white boys were marginalized.

It is not surprising that the earliest school shooters were white boys; schools taught them they were unimportant. I cannot imagine the rage festering today in white children who are being taught Critical Race Theory. This rage may be part of the reason so many young white adults have joined the Hate The Jews movement: after years of being seen as the ultimate villains, they how have found a group even more hated than them.

Self-Esteem

Teaching children that they are great without giving them an opportunity to develop skills is ridiculous. Self-esteem comes not from getting a trophy after sitting on the softball bench all season, nor from hitting only home runs. It comes from improving—even if just from only strikes to actually connecting with the ball. When I worked for the Dept. of Health and Welfare in Idaho I spent 3 days visiting the nearest mental hospital. I remember the social worker giving me a tour who bragged about their crafts program. Later, a young man who was there because he had been suicidal gave me a ceramic mug he had painted. He apologized for the lack of skill and said he wished he could learn to do it better, but there was no one in the recreation room able to help him. I felt great sadness; here was a person with self-esteem so low that he thought he and the world would be better without him, being ashamed of something he had made. Wouldn’t his mental health have improved if someone had taught him to do something well, even if it were “just” painting glaze in designs on mugs? 

By giving everyone a trophy and removing accolades for achievement we have created two generations of people who have no idea that doing something well can give them satisfaction. They do not even know what satisfaction is, outside of the satisfaction from a jelly donut, a tall, cold beer, sex, or a hit of the latest designer drug.

Religion

People who believe in God believe life has meaning and they personally are important. But religion has been denigrated in schools and universities for at least 40 years. I lived in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Dallas—as well as Pocatello, Idaho. My experience showed me that a majority of residents of large, anti-religious cities are cynics who are happy to tell any believer they meet how stupid he or she is. A few decades ago, the most popular bumper sticker in Boston read, The one with the most toys when he dies, wins. This is not a philosophy that leads to long-term happiness. In Dallas—part of the Bible Belt—and eastern Idaho—largely Mormon—I found the majority of people to be generally happy and upbeat. It is not a coincidence.

The Concentration of Traditional and Social Media

When I was young, there were tens, if not hundreds, of small and medium-sized publishers. However, over the years a few big conglomerates bought them, and sometimes radio and TV stations as well. This consolidation of publishing and broadcasting into a handful of massive companies means that just a small handful of people, mostly from New York City, set the standards of what is acceptable, and thus what young people see and believe is possible.

This has resulted in a sameness in what is available to consumers. An example of the dangers this has presented is the autobiographical essay author David Sedaris presented on NPR about how he knew he was gay. He said that he had been a physically small, unathletic boy who loved words and art, and other children had told him he was gay. Feeling different from the others as a teen (what teen doesn’t feel different?), he decided to try the gay lifestyle.

Where did the idea that feminine girls can’t be athletic and boys can’t be artistic come from? To a large extent, from the uniformity of images available in the media, where girls who sew and boys who draw are villains. In today’s books and media images, the girl who is athletic has nothing but disdain for feminine clothing while the sexy boy is always tall and muscle-bound. Meanwhile, a high proportion of women presenting material to teens on Tik-Tok are fat, have rainbow-colored hair, have facial hair, or are half-nude in sexy poses. It is not surprising that so many teens today are depressed, anxious, and confused.

Photo by Tommy van Kessel on Unsplash

Conclusion

Some things will resolve themselves, for example the push to higher education and denigration of manual skills. Between the utter immorality of universities, where calls for death to one group of students can only be called hate speech depending on context, extremely high tuition costs, and overwhelming student debt, universities have lost their attraction for a lot of people. I expect the current and following generation of young people will find the trades far more interesting than the previous two. Mike Rowe’s popular YouTube show, Dirty Jobs, has also spurred interest in work that requires more physical activity than simply pushing keys. At the same time, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence will reduce the number and type of white-collar jobs available.

The movie and recycling industries were begun by Jews who were blacklisted from many careers and turned their imaginations and entrepreneurial talents to creating new opportunities. Young Jews who decide not to attend colleges where they are not wanted, many of whom have financially stable parents who can bankroll them, will undoubtedly create new industries in which to succeed.

The demonization of parents who reject woke culture is also resulting in more homeschooling, charter schools, and religious schools, as well as changes in the compositions of school boards around the United States. Many of these people have conservative values of individual responsibility and a strong work ethic, factors that have been missing from public schools for many years. The alignment of conservative Christian and Muslim parents against wokeism in schools is also an interesting phenomenon that may have positive results for society.

I do not have a comprehensive suggestion for turning all these trends around. But I hope by pointing out actions that happened before most readers were born, and by drawing connections between superficially unrelated trends and occurrences, new ideas will be generated.

---

[i] Rivera, H., ed. By Wilkins A., The complete history of student loans. Bankrate, July 19, 2023, https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/history-of-student-loans/, accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

[ii] Salins, P.D., Blank, B.D., The Case for Universal Higher Education: A Further Interchange on Degrees. Journal article, AAUP Bulletin, Vol. 59, no. 3, Sept. 1973, pp. 324-327. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40239791 , accessed Feb. 18, 2024.

[iii] O’Connor, M., What Happened to Vocational School in America: Why did vocational education go out of vogue? Megan’s EdTech Newsletter, March 15, 2021, accessed Feb. 20, 2024.

What Happened to Vocational School in America

[iv] Addiction Outreach Clinic, 8 Personality Traits of Addicts, https://addictionoc.com/8-personality-traits-of-addicts/, accessed Feb. 18, 2024.

[v] I have worked on the lines in food-processing factories and as an ESL teacher in a Solo Cup factory; the belief that factory work is terrible is another liberal idea coined by people who have never done it. There can be an enjoyable camaraderie among workers, the work can be meditative and leave time to think and dream, workers can make up challenges to themselves and their coworkers related to the work, and there is the satisfaction of a job well done.

[vi] Wildsmith, E., Manlove, J., Cook, E. Dramatic increase in the proportion of births outside of marriage in the United States from 1990 to 2016. Child Trends, August 8, 2018, https://www.childtrends.org/publications/dramatic-increase-in-percentage-of-births-outside-marriage-among-whites-hispanics-and-women-with-higher-education-levels#_ftn1 , accessed Feb. 18, 2024.

[vii] McGurran, B., College Tuition Inflation: Compare the Cost of College Over Time. Forbes Advisor, updated May 9, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/student-loans/college-tuition-inflation/ , accessed 18 Feb. 2024.

[viii] Weinstein, P. Jr., Administrative Bloat at U.S. Colleges is Skyrocketing. Forbes, Aug. 28, 2023, https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulweinstein/2023/08/28/administrative-bloat-at-us-colleges-is-skyrocketing/?sh=16a20e3741d2, accessed Feb. 18, 2024.