interesting podcast! particularly enjoy the collection of useful links at the end :)
re: why the Tech Right is still talking about wokeness
It's not just PG and the Tech Right that have been talking about wokeness; since the 2024 election, a bunch of your typical econ / poli sci bloggers (e.g. Yglesias, Noah Smith, Silver are the ones that immediately come to mind) have written posts pushing back against wokeness. I think people just sense there's an opportunity to reorient / redefine the Democratic party after it's suffered its most decisive defeat since 2004. The Democratic party clearly needs to change, the only question is in which direction, and it's better to write these posts early on before narratives set in (or influence the narrative yourself). Even if we're past peak wokeness, I think the public perceives the Democratic party to still be pretty woke overall, and people like PG are probably concerned that wokeness could see a resurgence under Trump (like it did last time) or isn't declining fast enough.
This is a good take. I would only add that it’s not just the Democratic Party that’s the target of these think-y pieces lambasting wokeness, as illustrated by the recent infighting among Republicans on what Trump’s administration will stand for. I think many commentators see 2024 as a caesura, and since the new order is still inchoate, there’s a need for cultural and political myth-making to set the boundaries for what this period in American history will be about. Even commentators who were at least somewhat sympathetic to wokeness realize that for their own myths to have currency with other elites and with regular Americans they have to explain why the previous order collapsed, and pretending wokeness was not a part of this is a losing strategy. At the same time, the definition of what wokeness is or was will probably be contested: people who are sympathetic to it will probably argue, for instance, that the real excesses of the previous dispensation had to do with controls on speech, mobbing and unpersoning people on social media, etc. as opposed to, eg, expanded understandings of sexual harassment in the workplace.
I’d be super interested to read or hear more about the comparison with motor vehicles. Are you going to write or podcast on this? If not, do you have any resources you thought were particularly insightful while you were researching this at Mozilla?
One interesting thing about the motor vehicle consumer safety movement is that, by some accounts, the way activists achieved gains was through leveraging procedure. So for example Ralph Nader and Public Citizen used tort law and the courts to sue big automakers. This has an interesting connection with the first part of your conversation about Progress Studies, which sees the creative use of court processes as one of the big problems holding back growth and dynamism.
interesting podcast! particularly enjoy the collection of useful links at the end :)
re: why the Tech Right is still talking about wokeness
It's not just PG and the Tech Right that have been talking about wokeness; since the 2024 election, a bunch of your typical econ / poli sci bloggers (e.g. Yglesias, Noah Smith, Silver are the ones that immediately come to mind) have written posts pushing back against wokeness. I think people just sense there's an opportunity to reorient / redefine the Democratic party after it's suffered its most decisive defeat since 2004. The Democratic party clearly needs to change, the only question is in which direction, and it's better to write these posts early on before narratives set in (or influence the narrative yourself). Even if we're past peak wokeness, I think the public perceives the Democratic party to still be pretty woke overall, and people like PG are probably concerned that wokeness could see a resurgence under Trump (like it did last time) or isn't declining fast enough.
This is a good take. I would only add that it’s not just the Democratic Party that’s the target of these think-y pieces lambasting wokeness, as illustrated by the recent infighting among Republicans on what Trump’s administration will stand for. I think many commentators see 2024 as a caesura, and since the new order is still inchoate, there’s a need for cultural and political myth-making to set the boundaries for what this period in American history will be about. Even commentators who were at least somewhat sympathetic to wokeness realize that for their own myths to have currency with other elites and with regular Americans they have to explain why the previous order collapsed, and pretending wokeness was not a part of this is a losing strategy. At the same time, the definition of what wokeness is or was will probably be contested: people who are sympathetic to it will probably argue, for instance, that the real excesses of the previous dispensation had to do with controls on speech, mobbing and unpersoning people on social media, etc. as opposed to, eg, expanded understandings of sexual harassment in the workplace.
I listened to this earlier today. Very enjoyable!
I’d be super interested to read or hear more about the comparison with motor vehicles. Are you going to write or podcast on this? If not, do you have any resources you thought were particularly insightful while you were researching this at Mozilla?
One interesting thing about the motor vehicle consumer safety movement is that, by some accounts, the way activists achieved gains was through leveraging procedure. So for example Ralph Nader and Public Citizen used tort law and the courts to sue big automakers. This has an interesting connection with the first part of your conversation about Progress Studies, which sees the creative use of court processes as one of the big problems holding back growth and dynamism.
Hey jas