I read the op-ed, and will listen to your podcast when I have time, but my immediate thought on the right moving away from radical Islam to culture war stuff, immediately made me think of the world of Alan Moore's Watchmen. He made the observation way back then that America needs an existential threat or it eats itself from within. His ideas was that the cold war and the existential threat of a war with the USSR was something that united otherwise adversarial Americans. In the Watchmen the US "won" the cold war well before the US actually did.
"Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it."
I think about that exchange between those two characters and it really does remind me of what is happening in the US now.
On a side note, what really annoys me about all of this is, that fairly recently there were people who truly believed that Sharia Law was coming to the US. I couldn't imagine a more overblown concern. People also got mad at grade school history books for teaching about Islam, which is ridiculous as it's a world religion with billions of followers and everyone should have basic knowledge if the faith.
Some of the same over-reactors are now concerned in a similar fashion about "wokeism."
Obviously radical Islam is a greater threat than wokeism and a serious threat to world stability, it's a persistent threat to moderate Islamic people all over the world particularly. It can be genocidal in a way "wokeness" clearly is not. However people tend to gravitate towards what they perceive as effecting them in their own lives. Much of the time when I see people with misplaced concerns I think of the pastor's wife in classic Simpsons episodes that screams "Think of the CHILDREN!" everytime she gets wind of something a tiny bit perturbing happening.
What I have observed about the US in the last few years is that there is this persistent culture of victimhood. This includes some of the "wokeism" types and their reactionary counterparts. To me it seems like a game where people try to use perceived victimhood to leverage power. I want stay away from that.
I read the op-ed, and will listen to your podcast when I have time, but my immediate thought on the right moving away from radical Islam to culture war stuff, immediately made me think of the world of Alan Moore's Watchmen. He made the observation way back then that America needs an existential threat or it eats itself from within. His ideas was that the cold war and the existential threat of a war with the USSR was something that united otherwise adversarial Americans. In the Watchmen the US "won" the cold war well before the US actually did.
"Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it."
I think about that exchange between those two characters and it really does remind me of what is happening in the US now.
On a side note, what really annoys me about all of this is, that fairly recently there were people who truly believed that Sharia Law was coming to the US. I couldn't imagine a more overblown concern. People also got mad at grade school history books for teaching about Islam, which is ridiculous as it's a world religion with billions of followers and everyone should have basic knowledge if the faith.
Some of the same over-reactors are now concerned in a similar fashion about "wokeism."
Obviously radical Islam is a greater threat than wokeism and a serious threat to world stability, it's a persistent threat to moderate Islamic people all over the world particularly. It can be genocidal in a way "wokeness" clearly is not. However people tend to gravitate towards what they perceive as effecting them in their own lives. Much of the time when I see people with misplaced concerns I think of the pastor's wife in classic Simpsons episodes that screams "Think of the CHILDREN!" everytime she gets wind of something a tiny bit perturbing happening.
What I have observed about the US in the last few years is that there is this persistent culture of victimhood. This includes some of the "wokeism" types and their reactionary counterparts. To me it seems like a game where people try to use perceived victimhood to leverage power. I want stay away from that.