I am very surprised to read this, because I was getting the completely opposite vibe. Richard Rorty said, there was such a thing as a Reformist Left, where the universities and trade unions stood together, and it was replaced by a Cultural Left where the universities stood alone.
That is, my impression was that discourse on the left is now completely dominated by universities. Very little interest in socialism left, and instead of socialism the discourse on the left is "the father of a child can be a woman", which is something working class people do not understand. Post-colonial studies. Very academic versions of feminism. Challenging heteronormativity and cisnormativity (very academioc sounding words). And that word: intersectionalism, that wins the gold medal for the most academic sounding political word ever. Basically my impression was that "woke" just means campus culture that after around 2012 social media became a thing, it spread all over it.
If the universities are in decline, how comes their perspective completely dominates the discourse on the left?
BTW when professors are treated badly, no shit, they will radicalize. But why this way? Teaching kids about intersectionalism does not bring more pay and better working conditions.
I got the label , "radical conservative" from Stephen Toulmin's Cosmopolis: someone who is disgusted with contemporary society and would reform it in the n%ame of a past value. He combine's Yeats' Second Coming and one by John Donne to show that they are the same poem. Yeats wanted to revive the Irish peasantry and the fairies via theosophy; Donne wanted to restore a nobility based on kinship to James I's rotten court. When I read this, I thought "Hang on, Yeats and Donne are my two favorite poets; what does that make me?" I too am a radical conservative and I want to restore Vico, Rousseau, and Kant's v Enlightened revolution. See https://johnkeithhart.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-long-counter-revolution-feb.
I am very surprised to read this, because I was getting the completely opposite vibe. Richard Rorty said, there was such a thing as a Reformist Left, where the universities and trade unions stood together, and it was replaced by a Cultural Left where the universities stood alone.
That is, my impression was that discourse on the left is now completely dominated by universities. Very little interest in socialism left, and instead of socialism the discourse on the left is "the father of a child can be a woman", which is something working class people do not understand. Post-colonial studies. Very academic versions of feminism. Challenging heteronormativity and cisnormativity (very academioc sounding words). And that word: intersectionalism, that wins the gold medal for the most academic sounding political word ever. Basically my impression was that "woke" just means campus culture that after around 2012 social media became a thing, it spread all over it.
If the universities are in decline, how comes their perspective completely dominates the discourse on the left?
BTW when professors are treated badly, no shit, they will radicalize. But why this way? Teaching kids about intersectionalism does not bring more pay and better working conditions.
I got the label , "radical conservative" from Stephen Toulmin's Cosmopolis: someone who is disgusted with contemporary society and would reform it in the n%ame of a past value. He combine's Yeats' Second Coming and one by John Donne to show that they are the same poem. Yeats wanted to revive the Irish peasantry and the fairies via theosophy; Donne wanted to restore a nobility based on kinship to James I's rotten court. When I read this, I thought "Hang on, Yeats and Donne are my two favorite poets; what does that make me?" I too am a radical conservative and I want to restore Vico, Rousseau, and Kant's v Enlightened revolution. See https://johnkeithhart.substack.com/p/notes-on-the-long-counter-revolution-feb.