It appears that ‘woke’ took off after 2010. See the charts in the 8/4/2020 issue of Tablet magazine. Note that this shift predates Trump and even predates the events in Ferguson. Why is the obvious question. Why did ‘woke’ take off after 2010?

One theory (that I half agree with) is that this shift was a delayed response to the GFC. In other words, economic elites dreamed up ‘woke’ as a mean of deflecting hostility towards the financial system (which had so obviously failed in the GFC). The problem with this theory is that the ‘woke’ vehemently disagree. Try convincing Jones (NH) or Kendi (I) that they are tools of the economic elite. Good luck with that.

Another theory relates to the end of the Cold War. The rise of Cultural Marxism is too some degree, a consequence of the fall of conventional Marxism. Conventional Marxism was (slowly) dying by the 1950s. The Soviet invasion of Hungary and later Czechoslovakia alienated (or worse) a vast number of people who might have otherwise supported the Communist system. The economic failure of Eastern Europe combined with the great success of the “Little China’s” (Macau, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan) and South Korea was a great blow to the credibility of conventional Marxism. The Cambodian genocide must be mentioned in this context as well. Of course, the fall of the USSR and China’s switch to Capitalism (and subsequent success) were the final nails in the coffin.

My sense of it is that failure of the Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was a bigger deal than China’s switch to capitalism. The numbers make the converse case. However, I still think the failure of Soviet system (and Eastern Europe) was/is more important. I don’t agree, but that doesn’t matter.

Of course, these were monumental blows to the traditional Left. However, the Left wasn’t about to fold its tent and disappear. For better or worse, a huge section of society will never embrace bourgeois values and will be (highly) motivated to reject them. Since conventional Marxism was “the god that failed”, the Left embraced Cultural Marxism as a substitute. Of course, Cultural Marxism is just as crazy as conventional Marxism (perhaps considerably crazier). However, we don’t have easy country comparisons to show how nuts it is (i.e. no North Korea vs. South Korea).

Blank Slate ideology is arguably nuttier than old-style Marxism. However, we don’t (yet) have a Stalin or Mao to attack as the leader of it (Cultural Marxism).

Yet another theory suggests that the failure of liberalism was/is a substantial factor in the rise of ‘woke’. In the 1960s (and earlier decades and later decades) it was widely believed that liberalism would work. In other words, Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would produce a (much) better American where poverty and race would not be intertwined and poverty itself would more or less disappear. That didn’t happen of course. Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was roughly as successful as his war in Vietnam.

At this point it is obvious that liberalism has failed (in attaining the goals of the 1960s). Some folks have responded to this failure by basically giving up. However, the most motivated have moved to the left (far left). Note that we hear far more about “systematic racism” now (when it doesn’t exist) than we did when Jim Crow was a daily reality.

Were the 1960s really a failure? In my opinion, the answer is yes and no. For some time now, orchestras have used “blind auditions” to hire new musicians. This approach has led to a large increase in the number of Asian and female musicians being hired. The number of blacks and Hispanics hired, was quite low, and has remained quite low. The “blind auditions” mechanism was adopted precisely to eliminate discrimination in the hiring of musicians and it has worked as intended. However, it has not yielded equal outcomes by any means.

The New York Times’s chief critic has launched a campaign to end the merit-based ‘blind audition’ hiring process for orchestras.

I wrote (some time ago)

“Amid the current moment of moral panic in American racial politics, any proposal, no matter how regressive or discriminatory in nature, can become a non-negotiable demand if it is sold as part of the Black Lives Matter campaign. That is the only way to understand the potential impact of a recent piece by Anthony Tommasini, the New York Times’ chief classical-music critic, that advocates the end of the merit-based system for hiring at American orchestras.”