At its core, Woke is building a movement to subvert the left and disempower it in the face of its very real theocratic and fascist enemies. It pits men against women, straight and cis against queer, black against white, and the working class against intellectuals. It denigrates science with various derivatives of the meaningless pseudoscience called “critical theory.” The field is so rigorous that one of its major journals published a (fabricated) paper documenting a rape culture rampant in dog parks.[1] But more than anything, Woke teaches its young, idealistic students that they should seek refuge in a “safe place” rather than learn to overcome their fears and enemies.
This seems like something our enemies invented.
[1] Lindsay, James, Peter Bogassian, and Helen Pluckrose. “Academic Discontent and the Corruption of Academics.” AreoFebruary 10, 2018.
This is an article by Jonathan Lipow. Public Policy for Progressives2023.
Jonathan is a professor of economics at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is in a different department than I was at the university, but we have been colleagues for many years.
Jonathan is a progressive, and he wants to talk to other progressives who he thinks should hear his economic message. Jonathan and I don’t agree on everything, of course. Remember, he’s a progressive. But we agree on a lot of things.
I’ll be posting a few more articles about the contents of his book in the next week or so.
For now, let me just present one more excerpt with a brief commentary.
But as we will see, logic and evidence strongly suggest that some of the policies currently popular among the American left are, in fact, literally absurd—for example, opposition to charter schools and nuclear energy. Meanwhile, other policies widely supported by progressives—for example, a $15 minimum wage—are not absurd, but the overwhelming evidence suggests that they are ineffective and essentially a waste of time. [DRH note: I wish they were just a waste of time rather than a policy that makes it more difficult for young unskilled workers to get on the first rung of the economic ladder.] On the other hand, readers might be pleased to learn that progressives instinctively support universal health insurance. [DRH note: hmmm] and liberal immigration policy [DRH note: yes] It is well supported by both logic and evidence.
Additional content will follow.
P.s: I wrote about Jonathan’s previous book in 2016. He praised me in it. He argued that my libertarian views might not apply to the world as well as I thought.
