The economist Robin Hanson has a wonderful wide-ranging curiosity. He developed the "Great Filter" concept for SETI, and wrote a paper about expanding alien civilizations and what it means if we haven't detected them.
Now he's tackling the ideological divide in our society, the so-called "culture war" by examining how it derives from what people consider sacred. Here's his draft paper on the subject, and two posts on his blog Overcoming Bias on the topic. This one is especially useful.
Mr. Hanson's analysis clarified some of my own recent thoughts on the subject. It really does seem as if modern Western society is going through a kind of religious awakening — though in this case the new faith is resolutely anti-theist and goes under a variety of names. "Progressivism," "Social Justice," or maybe "Wokeness." At times I feel like a Roman of the era just before Constantine: a new faith is spreading like wildfire, and like a fire it seems to be consuming many of the things I consider essential to our civilization.
Sometimes a new faith is like Christianity (or the Protestant Reformation) — but too often it winds up more like Robespierre's cult of the Goddess of Reason, or Hong Xiuquan's Heavenly Kingdom. Destroying the old order is easy, but building a new one is hard, especially if you've convinced yourself that anyone who disagrees with you is stupid and evil, and any failures of the new faith must be due to wreckers and saboteurs. That's always a reliable way to wind up with a pyramid of skulls.
Yes. Wokeism = *serously* bad news!
Long essay at the Atlantic re how the French are dealing with this. "Le Wokeism"!
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/03/france-tocqueville-democracy-race-le-wokisme/672775/
Plus I just reread your fine story in Dozois #22
! Reminder of the "overnite success" bit . . . 😇
Posted by: Peter D. Tillman | 02/06/2023 at 09:02 AM