From The New Leviathans (John Gray, 2023)
p108
A global liberal order is more distant than it has ever been. Yet, in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of a European land, Western countries were congratulating themselves on their unity. A second end of history, which had failed to materialize when Fukuyama announced it in 1989, had seemingly arrived. In fact, a curtain had dropped like that which came down over Russia in 1917, leaving the prospects of the liberal West doubtful.
Unlike humanistic Bolshevism, liberal societies did once exist. But they came into being by accident, and there was never any possibility they would become universal. Today they are themselves ceasing to be liberal. In the midst of these realities, the moth-eaten musical brocade of progressive hope has been rolled out again. Without the pattern they believe to be unfolding in history, twentyfirst-century liberals—like Bukharin—-face ‘an absolutely black vacuity’.
It would be wiser to admit, as Koestler did in regard to communism, that the post-Cold War dream of a new world order was an illusion. But twenty-first-century liberals can no more renounce their faith than could interwar communists: it is necessary for their mental survival. If liberalism has a future, will be as therapy against fear of the dark.
pp111-2
In their economic aspects, woke movements are a revolt of the professional bourgeoisie. As capitalism concentrates wealth and power in ever smaller sections of society, university professors, media figures, lawyers, charity workers, community activists and officers in non-government organizations face increasing competition, falling incomes and dwindling status. Elites have been produced in numbers greater than society can absorb. If Western capitalism creates an expanding underclass without any productive function, it also produces a lumpen intelligentsia that is economically superfluous. The result in both cases is to destabilize the political system through which this type of capitalism reproduces itself.
The role of surplus elites in politics has been examined by the historian and sociologist Peter Turchin. The theory of elite overproduction continues the work of the political economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). Pareto analysed political belief systems as rationalizations of elite power struggles.
Today what drives these struggles is not just rivalry for power but insecurity. Surplus elites are waging a war for economic survival in which hyper-liberal values are commodified in the labour market. Woke is a career as much as a cult. By advertising their virtue, redundant graduates hope to gain a foothold on the crumbling ladder that leads to safety as one of society’s guardians.
The university campus is the model for an inquisitorial regime that has extended its reach throughout society. At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, applicants seeking positions in chemical and biomolecular engineering must submit a statement ‘describing the candidate’s approach to an experience with diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education’. Every open faculty position listed by Ohio State University’s College of Arts and Sciences, including economics, freshwater biology and astronomy, requires a statement ‘articulating the applicant’s demonstrated commitments and capacities to contribute to diversity, equity and inclusion through research, teaching, mentoring, and/or outreach and engagement’. The University of California Berkeley’s Rubric for Assessing Candidate Contributions to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging goes further in requiring that a low score be given to any candidate who ‘states the intention of ignoring the varying backgrounds of their students and “treating everyone the same”’. Similar practices exist throughout much of American higher education.’
Woke thinking represents itself as a global movement in which America is taking the lead.
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