It’s a mistake to invest too much emotional energy in a former critic embracing your cause. Chances are you will find out they still think you are a dunce.
Still, it’s nice to see when it happens, if for no other reason than they have credibility with lots of people who will never give you the time of day. Even better, sometimes those people start taking you a little more seriously too.
It’s particularly exciting to see the “smarter set” join the cause, and Bill Maher fits into this category. Unlike Jon Stewart, who is more a mannequin who is good at reading lines than a genuine comedian and thinker, Maher is genuinely smart. He has the skill of making people want to be part of his cool circle, so he can have an important cultural effect, as well.
His latest tirade against wokeism is spot on, comparing the current movement to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, of which it is an analog. Maher uses his trademark smug attitude for a good cause–calling out the woke for their unwillingness to acknowledge basic truths about biology and human nature.
If you’re part of today’s woke revolution, you need to study the part of revolutions where they spin out of control. pic.twitter.com/IYNfDhtR0C
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) February 4, 2023
It’s interesting that Maher focuses some attention on a major characteristic of woke culture–its utterly ahistorical nature. I have always found it striking that the cultural revolutionaries of today seem to have no understanding of history in the least. They occasionally refer to a few specific historical events but have no general understanding of the sweep of history or human nature.
Their goal, in fact, is to create a new Year 0 and a new human nature.
They treat slavery as an invention of White Europeans, imposed on Black Africans in the 17th century. White Europeans did in fact employ African-derived slaves, but such was the norm in most societies throughout history, including Black African societies. Serfs were essentially slaves in Europe, and there is no racial group that has not had nor has not suffered from slavery. It is one of the most common themes in human history, to our discredit as a species.
Yet none of those historical facts matter, because there is a narrative to push, not a genuine encounter with the best and worst of humanity.
There is a mindlessness to the current woke wave that isn’t remotely unique to it–it is like many movements throughout history. Any time a group of people adopts a fixed idea of how the world works, it becomes impervious to critiques or contradictory facts.
The Salem Witch Trials, the Spanish Inquisition, the French Revolution, Marxism, Maoism, cults…they all share the same DNA.
And as with most cult-like movements, there is a group at the top who spur it on, profit from it, disdain their own followers, and revel in the power. They are occasionally eaten by the very revolution they spurred because they fail to understand that revolutions often eat their own. They imagine they will be the Castros and Stalins, not the Trotskys or Robespierre.
In 21st-century America, at least so far, the revolutionaries have been using a softer form of power than guillotines and guns. Social and economic pressure, not outright violence. The riots of 2020 show that the violence is barely contained, and Antifa is ready for the fight. But the leaders of the revolution already own most of the culture and would rather exercise their power by destroying people, not things.
But revolutions are hard to contain, and disorder has become common and cancerous in our cities. That wasn’t the goal of woke revolutionaries at the top of the pyramid, but it is a consequence of their actions.
Can we push back and contain the slow-moving revolution (not so slow anymore)? The tale has yet to be told.
We need allies like Maher, Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, Glen Greenwald, and others who have broken from the Left on cultural matters. They retain a sliver of credibility that we never had. You and I can influence policy in Red states, with enough pressure. But only liberals who break from the woke consensus can move the ball elsewhere.
