If there’s a light at the end of the dark tunnel our nation is in right now, it’s because of Horace’s ancient dictum, “You can chase out nature with a pitchfork, but she will keep running back.” Arguably, wokeism is defined by its gnostic rejection of nature on gender, sexuality, the laws of economics, energy, race, speech, and rationality itself.
Yet, nature has the final say, and we’re seeing it in the slow retreat of leftists from wokeism. Nary a day goes by on which a new Substack writer confesses some variation of, “I’m not a right-winger; I’m a proud progressive, but these new leftists are crazy, and I’m done with the Democrats.” They’ve reached a terminus in their minds where they can no longer bear the cognitive dissonance created by the suspension of reality. They’re done drinking the Kool-Aid.
The Liar’s Paradox
Consider the left’s cognitive dissonance on race. They have a Liar’s Paradox problem. The Liar’s Paradox goes, “A Cretan says all Cretans are liars. Is he to be believed?”
Today, the paradox goes, “European male critical theorists say everything white males do only furthers systems protecting their power. Does the theory itself fall under that verdict?” Or currently, it would go, “A bunch of white tech entrepreneurs, CEOs, politicians, college administrators, business leaders, educators, and human resource managers push Critical Race Theory. Are they punking us while laughing all the way to the bank?”
Critical Race Theory says systemic racism is the inescapable order of things. So, if you’re a black child, personal agency is a chimera. You might as well try to escape the grip of gravity and fly like Superman. Such things don’t happen. How does this not disempower blacks?
Meanwhile, who benefits from this disempowerment? An entire industry of academicians, consultants, politicians, and entrepreneurs profit off the theory. Woke white graduates have lucrative careers in human resources awaiting them. Whites on social media gain a sense of moral superiority through it.
So, cities are burned, their denizens murdered, and their businesses looted while Amazon grows. This might help Jeff Bezos, Shannon from human resources, or Emily on TikTok. But how does this help Elijah from Riverdale? It doesn’t. Elijah is a bit player in the woke leftist’s ideological psychodrama.
The evidence of this sort of cognitive dissonance is mounting. More to the point, Horace’s dictum is proving true. The suspension of reality necessary for so much of Wokeism cannot hold, and nature runs back. Two recent examples highlight this.
Woke Education Policies Backfire
In a Substack article, “Yes, Things Are Really As Bad As You’ve Heard,” Wesley Yang presents the account of a teacher in a blue city involved in a free summer program. Because of woke criteria, the program became unmanageable and useless, hurting the very people it intended to help. Watch in real-time Horace’s dictum pan out for this teacher:
I’m a leftist. Like, a big one. I hate capitalism, I support abortion on demand, and I unironically use phrases like “systems of oppression” and “the dominant culture.”
In my short career as an educator, I’ve had countless … encounters with colleagues and administrators so surreal that even close friends chided me for exaggerating or “playing into right-wing tropes” when I repeat them. And there’s a sense in which I don’t blame them, because things really are that crazy out here…
Here’s the punch line:
