Thanks for this post. This really made me think. As a gay guy growing up at a time where there was still a lot of stigma in coming out, I always though the point of "pride" was to push back against what may be described here as a form of social control and oppression, i.e. that labeling me as "gay" meant I had to be shamed or, if not publicly shamed, separated as something different so I couldn't participate in some things in life (e.g. sports). Now that these barriers are coming down, I am confused as to what "gay culture" or "queer culture" is supposed to be and if it's really just another form of classification and control. Example: during a recent job interview, I was demerited for not having enough past specific ideas or experience I could point to in fostering a LGBT friendly culture in the workplace (besides treating everyone equally with benefits, family leave), even though they knew I was out.
The association of dark skin with slavery is older than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It appeared in late antiquity and became popular among Arabs and Persians in the Middle Ages, and Europeans seem to have gotten it from them.
Lovely article, thanks. MF would have been fascinated by the corporate and governmental adoption of woke/SJ, and he’d definitely have seen it as another way to control and punish people at the bottom of the hierarchy.
This is incredibly insightful. I'm not a huge fan of Foucault, but it does seem he's being blamed pretty unfairly. I keep seeing people hang wokeism as if it's some result of postmodernist thinking. Postmodernism to me seems like it would be deeply suspicious of and uncomfortable with wokeism, which is, after all, yet another large cultural narrative. Yes, wokeism pulls a lot of its conceptual ideas of power from postmodernist thought, but I consider it a coopting of that thought -- as if it has learned the lessons of the power of language and narrative from postmodernism and then applied them cynically.
My goodness you are a clearheaded thinker. I think I will read everything you’ve written on the Substack
Thanks for this post. This really made me think. As a gay guy growing up at a time where there was still a lot of stigma in coming out, I always though the point of "pride" was to push back against what may be described here as a form of social control and oppression, i.e. that labeling me as "gay" meant I had to be shamed or, if not publicly shamed, separated as something different so I couldn't participate in some things in life (e.g. sports). Now that these barriers are coming down, I am confused as to what "gay culture" or "queer culture" is supposed to be and if it's really just another form of classification and control. Example: during a recent job interview, I was demerited for not having enough past specific ideas or experience I could point to in fostering a LGBT friendly culture in the workplace (besides treating everyone equally with benefits, family leave), even though they knew I was out.
The association of dark skin with slavery is older than the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It appeared in late antiquity and became popular among Arabs and Persians in the Middle Ages, and Europeans seem to have gotten it from them.
Lovely article, thanks. MF would have been fascinated by the corporate and governmental adoption of woke/SJ, and he’d definitely have seen it as another way to control and punish people at the bottom of the hierarchy.
This is incredibly insightful. I'm not a huge fan of Foucault, but it does seem he's being blamed pretty unfairly. I keep seeing people hang wokeism as if it's some result of postmodernist thinking. Postmodernism to me seems like it would be deeply suspicious of and uncomfortable with wokeism, which is, after all, yet another large cultural narrative. Yes, wokeism pulls a lot of its conceptual ideas of power from postmodernist thought, but I consider it a coopting of that thought -- as if it has learned the lessons of the power of language and narrative from postmodernism and then applied them cynically.