Very interesting post by Werner K. Zagrebbi on Curtis Yarvin defending the wokism-as-virtue-signaling thesis.

I agree that it’s often correct to attribute people’s beliefs to a drive for status. However, this raises the question of why the belief is associated with higher status in the first place. And the answer may be that the belief was judged by a more-or-less rational community to be logical and supported by evidence.

My example is the theory of evolution. Intelligent people used to virtue signal by being Biblical literalists and young earth creationists. Then in the 19th century a bunch of nerds wrote books and articles with evidence for evolution by natural selection, and most intelligent people changed their minds. Biblical literalism switched from high to low status. The proximate explanation for why the average college grad in 2024 believes in evolution is probably the fact that the belief is accorded status in his community. But the ultimate explanation is the fact that Darwin et al. made objectively good arguments.

“Elites are better placed to swallow this aversion because they are smart and sophisticated enough to intuit wokeness is high status to people who matter.” – Again, why did wokism become high status to people who matter (i.e., smart people)? Given that wokism follows from premises that (I think) Zagrebbi agrees are shared by both the mainstream left and right (particularly the equality thesis), isn’t the more parsimonious explanation that smart people are more likely to follow the logic of the premises? This doesn’t mean that each individual wokester is a philosopher who goes through a rigorous process of working out the logical implications of their beliefs. But smart communities gravitate toward the logical (or at least internally consistent) conclusion, and within the community status is associated with the logical view.

Zagrebbi says that the trigger for wokism (treating everyone the same) was “more diversity in American elite spaces.” But this diversity is largely a consequence, not cause, of wokism. American elites diversified their spaces because they wanted to bring about equality of outcome among groups that they believed had equal potential.

“I doubt that, on the margin, writing another killer paper that moves the—regrettably—hypothetical race and IQ controversy Rootclaim a fraction of a percent closer to one hundred will have an impact on the broader culture on any reasonable time scale.” – I would emphasize that my strategy doesn’t involve only writing papers. I have called for an organized campaign to spread information and retake institutions (ncofnas.com/p/a-guide-f…). There is suggestive evidence that a hereditarian revolution may already be underway. Virtually all zoomer—and most millennial—intellectuals on the right understand the reality and importance of race differences. Over the next 10-15 years they’re going to start gaining influence in establishment conservative institutions.

“What makes wokeness so sticky and ubiquitous is that it is a generally accurate signal that you are going to treat people well, and thus are worth cooperating with.” – One potential problem for the wokism-as-virtual-signaling thesis is that the most extreme wokesters are notorious for infighting and trying to cancel each other. This seems more consistent with wokism being in many cases rooted in sincere moral commitment rather than an impulse to signal cooperativeness.