my goodness YOU did great on this one Josh!!!! Great interview….look forward to reading the book and then continuing on with my work here on all this stuff….going to share this with Alison who is the head of DEI at my job (Costco) that i’ve been talking with quite a bit over the last several months about this kind of stuff….
This episode brought up some new information about DEI but overall I thought it was disjointed and confused. A few thoughts:
1. I don't think it makes sense to group economically left wing and socially conservative voters as one voting block. There are certain socially conservative racial minorities that think their economic interests are best served by the Democrats and certain socially conservative white people that think their economic interests are best served by the Republicans. This is because they're not really economically left, they just want benefits for their in-group/kin. Thus, it would be mistaken to segment voters so broadly (i.e. 20% of the population). Lastly, you seemed to imply these voters are not getting their needs met. It was unclear in the interview how many of these people are voters vs. non-voters but I would argue that if they are voting then they are getting their needs met, they just prioritize different things than what you and I might want them to prioritize.
2. Also on cultural issues in general, it is too simplistic to think of it as socially liberal vs. socially conservative. In my opinion, there are at least 3 different poles to social issues: attitudes towards sex, attitudes about leisure/recreation and attitudes towards outsiders. Social conservativism in the Reagan era was more focused on the first 2 and in the Trump era it is more lenient on the first 2 but more harsh on the last 1. Keep in mind, there are still a lot of non-Trumpian social conservatives (ex. Catholics) who are open to immigrants but more conservative on sex.
3. Jen tries to imply the reason the Democrats and Kamala lost was because of wokeness. Later in the interview she says that Kamala tried to tone this down but she thinks the stench of wokeness was too strong for Kamala to overcome. However, the Democrats won in 2020 when they were more woke. Couldn't you easily claim the Democrats lost because they tried to tone down their message and it hurt them in mobilizing their base? The reality is that most elections have multiple factors and the last 3 have been really close (a few 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt could've swung it either way). Thus, trying to pinpoint one issue will usually result in your analysis being over-determined. Of course, you may still disagree with wokeness on a personal level but then you should make a principled argument instead of a political one.
4. In addition to the 3rd point, I'm not sure the left pushing back on wokeness is something that scares establishment liberals. In the cultural sphere, people like Bill Maher and Yasha Mounk have been arguing for this. In the political realm, Gavin Newsome and Rahm Emanuel have been doing this. It seems like centrist libs want to blame young progressives for wokeness and the socialist left wants to blame establishment figures like Hilary Clinton. Taking both of these facts into account leads me to believe wokeness is actually a scapegoat for different factions in the Democratic party.
5. The interesting insight of the interview was that the parties have become more similar on economics but divergent on culture. Why have economic issues converged and how do you change that? That would be more interesting to explore in later interviews.
6. To follow up on the 5th point and talk about something you mentioned in the article: appealing to left-progressives and populist conservatives. Maybe the reason they are politically opposed is because there is no new economic plan so they've started to prioritize cultural issues. Even if you got rid of wokeness and had a better cultural values for the Democrats, then it would probably change things on the margin (and the Dems would probably win a few more elections) but it would not re-orient politics since social conservatives would still vote Republican (as cultural issues would still be the only thing that matters in elections).
7. Lastly, when it comes to social issues I don't think you'll win over the populist right by saying you think wokeness is annoying. They don't think it's annoying, they think it's a threat to their way of life. They'll listen to you speak, think at least you're not a crazy woke leftist and then they'll support some right-winger who actually shares their views. As long as you have somewhat socially liberal views you'll be different to them. The only way to win them over would be to change the paradigm of what people prioritize.
Some extra thoughts:
1. On revolutions, why should we follow examples that were 100s of years ago? It's not like these revolutions were completely successful that they can be used as a blueprint for new political projects. Also, are revolutions good? Most end with a strongman that has to clean things up and re-establish order.
2. On the enlightenment, does it provide all the answers or is it limited in some respects? For example, we think enlightenment thinkers who wanted to come up with laws about the social sciences (comparable to those of the natural sciences) as mistaken. Why should we believe there are laws of history?
3. Also on the enlightenment and reason, does the world becoming more complex make reason harder? It's one thing to reason amongst 1000s of people in 10s of universities. Now there's millions of people in 10,000s of universities. Doesn't this make universalism harder?
I’ve just started watching but felt compelled to comment on the anecdote about the friend who “moved to Europe.” Europe contains member states which historically were both colonisers and colonised. It’s not a historico-political homogeneous region but American commentators often make the mistake of labelling it as though it is, presumably because from a US perspective, “Europe” is simply viewed as a kind of monoculture of whiteness with a variety of cute toppings and the origin of white supremacist culture in the US…
Great conversation. Thank you for ruining my identity and career as an SJW.
For what it’s worth, not to be a pedant, but based on those numbers, corporate racial equity investments were *1000x* the NLRB budget. That is insane to contemplate.
uh, yes! this! exactly! there’s nothing that bothers me more than the elite pretending to care about marginalized people and issues they clearly don’t want in their front yard. the performative insincerity is gross
my goodness YOU did great on this one Josh!!!! Great interview….look forward to reading the book and then continuing on with my work here on all this stuff….going to share this with Alison who is the head of DEI at my job (Costco) that i’ve been talking with quite a bit over the last several months about this kind of stuff….
will report back
Verso made her the ugliest book cover known to man.
This episode brought up some new information about DEI but overall I thought it was disjointed and confused. A few thoughts:
1. I don't think it makes sense to group economically left wing and socially conservative voters as one voting block. There are certain socially conservative racial minorities that think their economic interests are best served by the Democrats and certain socially conservative white people that think their economic interests are best served by the Republicans. This is because they're not really economically left, they just want benefits for their in-group/kin. Thus, it would be mistaken to segment voters so broadly (i.e. 20% of the population). Lastly, you seemed to imply these voters are not getting their needs met. It was unclear in the interview how many of these people are voters vs. non-voters but I would argue that if they are voting then they are getting their needs met, they just prioritize different things than what you and I might want them to prioritize.
2. Also on cultural issues in general, it is too simplistic to think of it as socially liberal vs. socially conservative. In my opinion, there are at least 3 different poles to social issues: attitudes towards sex, attitudes about leisure/recreation and attitudes towards outsiders. Social conservativism in the Reagan era was more focused on the first 2 and in the Trump era it is more lenient on the first 2 but more harsh on the last 1. Keep in mind, there are still a lot of non-Trumpian social conservatives (ex. Catholics) who are open to immigrants but more conservative on sex.
3. Jen tries to imply the reason the Democrats and Kamala lost was because of wokeness. Later in the interview she says that Kamala tried to tone this down but she thinks the stench of wokeness was too strong for Kamala to overcome. However, the Democrats won in 2020 when they were more woke. Couldn't you easily claim the Democrats lost because they tried to tone down their message and it hurt them in mobilizing their base? The reality is that most elections have multiple factors and the last 3 have been really close (a few 100,000 votes in the Rust Belt could've swung it either way). Thus, trying to pinpoint one issue will usually result in your analysis being over-determined. Of course, you may still disagree with wokeness on a personal level but then you should make a principled argument instead of a political one.
4. In addition to the 3rd point, I'm not sure the left pushing back on wokeness is something that scares establishment liberals. In the cultural sphere, people like Bill Maher and Yasha Mounk have been arguing for this. In the political realm, Gavin Newsome and Rahm Emanuel have been doing this. It seems like centrist libs want to blame young progressives for wokeness and the socialist left wants to blame establishment figures like Hilary Clinton. Taking both of these facts into account leads me to believe wokeness is actually a scapegoat for different factions in the Democratic party.
5. The interesting insight of the interview was that the parties have become more similar on economics but divergent on culture. Why have economic issues converged and how do you change that? That would be more interesting to explore in later interviews.
6. To follow up on the 5th point and talk about something you mentioned in the article: appealing to left-progressives and populist conservatives. Maybe the reason they are politically opposed is because there is no new economic plan so they've started to prioritize cultural issues. Even if you got rid of wokeness and had a better cultural values for the Democrats, then it would probably change things on the margin (and the Dems would probably win a few more elections) but it would not re-orient politics since social conservatives would still vote Republican (as cultural issues would still be the only thing that matters in elections).
7. Lastly, when it comes to social issues I don't think you'll win over the populist right by saying you think wokeness is annoying. They don't think it's annoying, they think it's a threat to their way of life. They'll listen to you speak, think at least you're not a crazy woke leftist and then they'll support some right-winger who actually shares their views. As long as you have somewhat socially liberal views you'll be different to them. The only way to win them over would be to change the paradigm of what people prioritize.
Some extra thoughts:
1. On revolutions, why should we follow examples that were 100s of years ago? It's not like these revolutions were completely successful that they can be used as a blueprint for new political projects. Also, are revolutions good? Most end with a strongman that has to clean things up and re-establish order.
2. On the enlightenment, does it provide all the answers or is it limited in some respects? For example, we think enlightenment thinkers who wanted to come up with laws about the social sciences (comparable to those of the natural sciences) as mistaken. Why should we believe there are laws of history?
3. Also on the enlightenment and reason, does the world becoming more complex make reason harder? It's one thing to reason amongst 1000s of people in 10s of universities. Now there's millions of people in 10,000s of universities. Doesn't this make universalism harder?
🧡🙌
when are u gonna have real leftists on?
like lol @ all this workerism 😴
I’ve just started watching but felt compelled to comment on the anecdote about the friend who “moved to Europe.” Europe contains member states which historically were both colonisers and colonised. It’s not a historico-political homogeneous region but American commentators often make the mistake of labelling it as though it is, presumably because from a US perspective, “Europe” is simply viewed as a kind of monoculture of whiteness with a variety of cute toppings and the origin of white supremacist culture in the US…
Great conversation. Thank you for ruining my identity and career as an SJW.
For what it’s worth, not to be a pedant, but based on those numbers, corporate racial equity investments were *1000x* the NLRB budget. That is insane to contemplate.
this intro hyped me up, can’t wait to listen and hate myself after
uh, yes! this! exactly! there’s nothing that bothers me more than the elite pretending to care about marginalized people and issues they clearly don’t want in their front yard. the performative insincerity is gross
Deal with it nerd