Submission statement:
Erik Hoel argues that 2012 was a cultural inflection point. Just as 1968 signalled the peak of the 1960s cultural revolution that would set the stage for the next few decades of social change, 2012 represents the beginning of the (spoiler) smartphone era and a new round of social change.
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Notes -
I think /u/MaiqTheTrue's diagnosis seems more accurate to me. One of the things that jumps out at you when you interact with hardcore woke people is how neurotic so many of them seem to be, convinced that they must walk on eggshells at all times for fear of unwittingly unleashing irreversible psychic harm on those around them. Hence the "micro-aggressions" paradigm, hence the banning of yoga and kimonos, hence the assertion that there's "no ethical consumption under capitalism", hence radical woke activists insisting that EVERYTHING is problematic, hence the claims that even members of minority group X can suffer from internalised anti-Xism/phobia. I'm far from the first person to note that "white privilege" (likewise male, cis, het etc.) as generally defined is functionally indistinguishable from original sin, but without the possibility of redemption (hence the rabid opposition to transracialism).
Even with people that woke people generally admire and consider "heroes" (e.g. Bernie Sanders), that admiration is always tempered by nebulous accusations that the hero is sullied in some nonspecific way: that he "failed to centre black voices" or whatever.
You're correct that woke people see out-and-out conservatives as irredeemably evil (I'm sure we've all seen memes saying that there's no essential difference between a MAGA hat, a KKK hood and an SS cap), but I don't think they generally see themselves as being pure and good. Probably the only way you can be truly "good" with no asterisks in the woke framework is to win the gold medal at the oppression Olympics e.g. a black trans sex worker from a working-class background with a history of drug abuse, a PTSD diagnosis and no green card. Given that woke people are overwhelmingly straight, white, middle- to upper-class, native-born and university-educated, this implies that the modal woke person probably walks around thinking they're kind of a shitty person most of the time ("but at least I'm not one of those bigoted MAGA chuds!").
Dylan Moran once said that all great religions are built on shame. This observation explains so much to me as to how Catholicism, evangelical Protestantism, Islam and wokeness became dominant ideologies in various nations, while Buddhism, Confucianism and so on were left in the dust.
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