The Moral Panic of the Woke Generation
The Moral Panic of the Woke Generation
Richard Gale and Gary Null PhD
Progressive Radio Network, August 11, 2020
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error and another to put him in touch with truth… No man’s knowledge can go beyond his experience” – John Locke (Essays Concerning Human Understanding)
Locke was not alone in questioning what we believe to be true knowledge, and pointing out the consequences of failing to discern falsehoods from reality. In fact Locke was in excellent company. Due to the scientific revolution that inspired several generations of deep thinkers, naturalists and philosophers, including Rousseau, Kant, Spinoza, Darwin, Bacon and Voltaire, the Age of Enlightenment or Age of Reason dominated the intellectual world of ideas for nearly two centuries.
Locke’s statements are important because today there is a new generation that has been indoctrinated by the shortcomings of scientific materialism originally launched during the Age of Reason. It was intended to bring forth a new purity, an idyllic perfectionism of thought and beliefs founded alone upon objective inquiry. Now, we are observing a juvenile revolution in the ideas of identity politics, wokeness and a passionate micro-aggression that derives hedonist pleasure in ridicule and insult. One of its more lofty goals is to end free speech as we know it – except for those who are woke.. Other goals are to institute a faux collectivism and to abolish meritocracy or social rewards earned through effort and achievement.
Important voices of critical thought – Noam Chomsky, Henry Giroux, Jordan Peterson, to name a few, have been warning us for a decade that this day was rapidly approaching. However, since there are no dynamic leaders in the youth’s woke moment of Maoist-style cleansing and purging wrong-views, wrong attitudes and wrong beliefs, most of us in the older generations wrongly assume it would be a passing phase. But it wasn’t.
In fact, the consequences of this unleashed furor, evidence by an absence of self-reflection or critical thought, has been channeled into a mob rule of dissent and abuse. In the street gatherings of protest, and across the social media, it is virtually unstoppable at this moment. No one is challenging them, neither the mainstream media nor the majority of academia. Rather, corporate leaders and persuasive forces in the democratic institutions are coming to their aid. Therefore, it proceeds under the cover of a silent political power to sustain its energy.
On the other hand, today’s youth have every reason to feel disenchanted and to suffer rampant existential angst, the emptiness of not feeling a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in the world at large. American neoliberal culture’s and our educational system’s singled-minded attention on science and technology — which in themselves are amoral disciplines — and rote memorization and testing has resulted in two decades of youth becoming essentially illiterate in the humanities, critical evaluation and reflective inquiry. It is also the most irreligious generation in American history. Without the skills of introspective thought to develop a sense of genuine well-being and true happiness, or what Plato called eudomonia as opposed to hedonia, (the pursuit of temporary or transient pleasures), our nation has tossed our youth to the rabid dogs of the social Darwinian rat race for survival.
Therefore, it is not surprising that suicides among today’s teens and twenty-somethings have risen 47 percent during the past two decades. Sadly the casualty rate is actually higher when we consider there are 36 percent more people living in their 20s today than there were at the turn of the century. Thirty-two percent of youth through their 20s have clinical anxiety disorders, 1 in 9 suffer from depression and almost 14 percent have ADHD. Although the medical community would like us to believe these are either inherited or biological conditions attributable to brain chemical inbalance, there is absolutely no scientific consensusproving there is a causal relationship between brain function and mental states. Certainly there are correlate relationships; but correlation is not causation. The latter is solely a belief, an assumption, without any conclusive and confirming data. The causes are therefore elsewhere and likely to found in our dysfunctional society and the complete breakdown of traditional ethical structures and universal values.
In 1972, South African sociologist Stanley Cohen proposed the Moral Panic Theory, an irrational widespread fear that threatens one’s sense of values, safety and cohesion to one’s “tribal” identity. This moral panic, Cohen observes, is bolstered by the injustices of the ruling elite and its mouthpieces in the media. It also centers around those who society marginalizes and based upon “ethnicity, class, sexuality, nationality and religion.” Ashley Grossman, writing for ThoughtCo, makes the point that ultimately, those in power will most benefit from moral panics “since they lead to increased control of the population and the reinforcement of the authority of those in charge.” The panic aroused in the leaders of Black Lives Matter and their allies, provides the government or state “to enact legislation and laws that would seem illegitimate without the perceived threat at the center of the moral panic.”
Unfortunately, our entire country, not just the demonstrators of Black Lives Matter and Antifa has entered a Moral Panic phase: the vitriolic propaganda in both parties, the greed and opportunism of the oligarchic and corporate elite, QAnon and the Alt-Right, the Woke-Left and of course the mainstream media. And the pandemic is only adding to this corrosive environment of social breakdown.
Repeatedly woke students are demanding their schools and colleges assure they are safe from ideas and philosophies that challenge their fragile comfort zones. Teachers and professors who students feel are challenging their illusions to knowledge and self-identity, either real or imagined, are being ostracized with calls for administrative dismissal. How many academicians are forced to remain silent to avoid the consequences of the new woke Inquisition? Such student actions are indicative of their frail sense of self-worth and existential angst; yet we must look at modern parental upbringing and our culture’s leading elders, as noted by Jonathan Haidt, to diagnose the causal factors for this psychological catastrophe of two entire generations.
Consequently, when collective panic has reached a threshold, Cohen’s theory might explain the sudden eruption of irrational behavior entangled in the Black Lives Matter and Antifa demonstrations, the burning of police facilities, toppling and destroying statues, public shaming and humiliation and widespread looting, violence and roguery. And it is equally endemic to the reactionary maleficence of white supremacists and militias. Occupying several blocks in Seattle, with armed militias, extorting store owners and engaging in a frenzy of bullying does not portend a peaceful transition to a more virtuous society.
So when a new book emerges, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, and becomes the holy grail of woke truths, we are lectured that what will not be tolerated is any deviation or heresy from the new norm it espouses. The author’s central theme is that if you have the misfortune of being born with the wrong genes into the wrong family, with the wrong skin color, you are a racist and will be such for the remainder of your days. Hence every White person is condemned with a defective moniker blazed across their forehead. And since meritocracy likewise is damned, all achievements are accounted for as having the privilege of being Caucasian. Your attempt to defend yourself and profess your free speech is a testament of your heresy. No apology or act of humility can save you. It is a life sentence without parole for good behavior.
White Fragility will now be taught in many schools, with the full cooperation of teacher unions and school administrators. Resistance will be a subversive act and an admission of your racism. It is critical to observe this may be heading towards a new paradigm of Orwellian social control.
Yet there is barely a shred of credible scientific evidence to support DiAngelo’s hypothesis that can be readily deconstructed and debunked. It is a flawed opinion, and a dangerous one at that. Worse, its long-reaching conclusions could advocate for a repressive regime of scientism that Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell warned about. Russell warned that “collective passions” have a penchant to inflame “hatred and rivalry directed towards other groups.” He was acutely aware that “science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for the good life as the head.” And DiAnglo’s screed falls into the dark abysmal waters of genetic determinism that gave rise to racist fascism. Russell further warned that this distorted over-reliance on faux science could be “a curse to mankind.”
Perhaps, during its Icarus moment, wokeness will self-destruct under its own rashness and the internal fire of its undiscerning ardor. What carnage it leaves in its wake remains to be seen.
Yet there is nothing new or original in the cultural rebellion we are witnessing. This game has been played out before in previous acts striving for an adolescent and unreachable social perfection. It will have its blowback. In his Principia Mathematica, Isaac Newton observed that for every action there is an equally opposing reaction. However, we have yet to witness how it will boomerang. But we will. In the meantime, a new class of wannabe priests is emerging within the woke movement, a priesthood David Hume warned about in his Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, which will in turn be an adversary to liberty.
Consider the backlash after Harpers magazine published a Letter on Justice and Open Debate that warned of “a new set of moral attitudes and political commitments that tend to weaken our norms of open debate and toleration of differences in favor of ideological conformity.” Signed by over 160 brilliant minds, academicians and authors – liberal and conservative — including Noam Chomsky, Jonathan Haidt, Susannah Heschel, Steven Pinker, Gloria Steinem, etc, the letter gives a stark warning of the unwelcomed consequences of the new culture of censorship that the demonstration’s leaders are ushering into the nation at large. The woke now demand retribution against its signers, in effect shutting down the nation’s 200-plus years of free speech, the right to disagree and public discourse.
Have those rebelling in the streets and casting out of society those who disagree with them considered earlier precedents for their actions? It was the Spanish Inquisition. In principle, how many today are in effect labeled heretics and “witches” because they have spoken publicly in favor of free speech and to oppose censorship? May not the woke movement in turn become the harbinger of a new Inquisition, a new platform of economic and social persecution by the powerful and wealthy waiting in the corridors after the cult of woke fizzles out?
The causal problems to our terrified culture is of course far deeper and has been identified and analyzed repeatedly in the writings of Chris Hedges and Henry Giroux. Our nation thrives on victimizing others, best exemplified by Trump’s example. Now the once victims of the woke generation, erupting from the simmering of their silent angst and meaninglessness are determined to be the new victimizers.
What is the end game when a populist uprising demands by disillusioned and psychologically traumatized youth at the mercy of capitalism’s parasitical march to claim more victims gets the upper hand. The movement has now evolved beyond its original demands for racial justice for the Black community who have been discriminated against by our institutions, particularly law enforcement and the private prison system. Now it is rapidly morphing into a massive autonomous cult of divisiveness and self-righteousness without a moral backbone that recognizes the essential values of forgiveness, reconciliation, and cooperative engagement for preserving a sane and productive culture that benefits all.
It is highly unlikely the demonstrations and revolt will slow down. More probable, it will be permitted to increase in order to further destabilize society to enable more repressive and draconian laws to criminalize thought-crimes and actions. Eventually, American democracy will be in name only. The plutocrats want it that way. Only then will the populace wake up and realize that the forces of power metastasized throughout the nation while the media kept us distracted and entertained.
