The ‘anti woke’ are positioned to win but can they capitalize?
post by Hzn · 2025-01-21T09:52:50.673Z · LW · GW · 0 commentsContents
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All I want for Christmas is an impressive victory in the culture war w/o too much net social harm [N1]!
Epistemic status -- fact checking is for the weak. Ie I'm confident in what I'm saying but it hasn't been carefully vetted.
Rather than obsessing about AI doom let's think about some thing way more fun -- culture wars!
Let's pretend the goal is {an impressive victory in the culture war for the right side w/o too much net social harm}. Impressive victory for the right side is ex ante undefined; what's important is that it be ex post impressive. The question is how can such a thing actually be achieved.
Whether an impressive victory for the right side is preferable to an impressive victory for the left side or an intermediate outcome is beyond the scope of this post [N2].
In hindsight Donald Trump losing in 2020 was hugely advantageous to the right side of the culture wars. If the ‘anti woke’ are now able to capitalize, Biden's victory will likely go down as one of the Pyrrhic est of Pyrrhic victories. That Trump was able to make a comeback is triply beneficial to the ‘anti woke’ cause. 1) It's more impressive. 2) He came back with a more hardcore cabinet. 3) The left side is fatigued not energized & has lost the very strong support it previously had from institutions & the center.
But can the ‘anti woke’ capitalize? Irrespective of your personal stance, is there a way the right side can win w/o too much net social harm? (If you want to think of this as coherent value extrapolation, I neither recommend that approach nor go I anti recommend it). So what could the right side do?
1) Get rid of (some) anti discrimination & hate crime laws. The Supreme Court maybe should declare most of these things unconstitutional. Anti discrimination laws in particular create a ratchet effect which is probably a key driver of wokeness. I think the SC may eventually do some thing like this just like the US eventually moved away from marijuana prohibition after like 80 years. Expected date of arrival -- 2044.
2) Defund academia. This could hurt me personally so I'm not completely unbiased. But academia is one area where the US is first class compared to other developed countries. If time lines were very long, I would support this given the possibility of pernicious influence over decades or even centuries. But long time lines seem unlikely barring partial societal collapse in the near future [LW · GW].
3) Restrict public sector unions. Perhaps along the lines of the first half of the 20th century. I don't know much about this. It seems reasonable & somewhat ambitious.
4) They do a bunch of politically easy things that strengthen their side & which don't drive away too many potential ‘anti woke’ allies. The 1st key here is to not be overly differential to the {don't drive away} part. Eg the Dems thought they would get votes b/c of abortion but the Dems had nothing tantalizing to offer the voters on this issue or any issue for that matter. The 2nd key is to not under estimate the extent to which people's thinking can change.
The sensible order to me seems like 4 then 3 then 1 then 2. I think this would lead to an ex post impressive victory for the right side w/o too much net social harm.
N1. For the record I'm quite neutral -- not centrist -- on the culture war. But I think it makes sense to consider different possibilities for how things might play out & how one side might attempt to gain advantage over the other.
N2. For my tentative view on this topic see here [LW · GW].
Hzn
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