Do We Need an Awakening from Wokeness?

In America’s political climate today, one’s answer to this question likely depends almost exclusively on your political affiliation.  Republican answer?  Hell yes, we do!  Democrat answer?  You obviously hate the under-privileged!

But wokeness represents too strong a force in American culture to be backed or dismissed thoughtlessly.  Like too many important topics today, we outsource our thinking to a group of “leaders” whose incentives differ greatly from our own.

Wokeness’ Strength

I see no reason to question the intent of Americans who associate with the views we now call ”woke.”  Most people who consider themselves progressive do so out of an awareness that in our very successful society, some groups of people still consistently participate far less in that overall success.  Their desire to change that is genuinely admirable.  It always takes a level of discomfort with the way things are to make things better.

Unfortunately, wokeness doesn’t have a very good track record of actually improving the situations it identifies as problematic.  The reasons why are surprisingly straightforward.

Incentives Matter

So many progressive policies fail to take into account the incentives they create and the critical nature of those incentives.  The book, San Fransicko by Michael Shellenberger is a very well-researched demonstration of this phenomenon.  It explains how the city that spends more than any other in the US addressing homelessness and public drug use turned itself into a mecca for homelessness and public drug use. 

The short answer?  By seeking to “help” homeless people and drug users, they ultimately made San Francisco the most desirable place to be a homeless drug user.  It’s easier to do things like this than you might think, but it’s also very easy to see it coming if you include considering incentives as a step in your thought process.

Shellenberger refers to this problem as “pathological altruism,” which he defines as, “Behavior in which attempts to promote the welfare of another or others results instead in harm that an external observer would conclude was reasonably foreseeable.”  Progressives today find themselves mired in this trap.  They want to do good, but regularly end up hurting the targets of their benevolence at a high cost to others.  Not a great position.

Attacking Systems and People, Rather than their Imperfections

Wokeness’ second comprehensive problem revolves around its compulsion to destroy imperfect systems and people.  The issue is obvious:  All systems and people are imperfect, but not all of them function productively.

That explains the critical nature of understanding people’s and system’s flaws while simultaneously striving to improve them through an evolutionary (not revolutionary) process.  The desire to destroy imperfect – but functioning – systems while offering nothing functional to replace them is the textbook definition of nihilism.  Another really bad territory to occupy.

Where this Leaves Today’s Left

The left is in a politically scary spot.  The Woke Emperor more and more obviously has no clothes, yet making that admission is politically perilous to say the least.   Ideally, this would morph into a shift towards policy ideas taking into account incentives and obvious truths.  Sadly, what seems to be happening currently is a rash of lies and a concerted effort to censor views that expose Wokeness’s false promises and premises.

Hopefully many of the voters and citizens drawn to wokeness by its claims of being the caring option see intent has not translated into reality, and more frequently has backfired altogether.  We’re flirting with the degradation of the foundation of our social and economic structure.  We need to turn the tide soon and that requires an awakening of the woke.

And also, Today’s Right

The Republican Party should offer a positive counter-proposal to the Left’s offering.  They could obviously move to show how their policies create more positive real outcomes for the very people the Left delivers for with good intentions only.  Sadly, the Republicans – who are ultimately politicians, just like the Democrats – seeming prefer to hurl insults at their weakened opponent rather than proposing viable policy alternatives.

As always, American voters will get the government we deserve.  It’s up to us to see through these politicians, solve the vast majority of problems ourselves and cut our government down to a more rational and reasonable size.