{"id":13161,"date":"2021-04-18T08:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-04-18T15:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=13161"},"modified":"2021-04-17T11:04:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-17T18:04:26","slug":"optimism-inc-will-wokeness-finally-cannibalize-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/optimism-inc-will-wokeness-finally-cannibalize-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Optimism, Inc.: Will Wokeness Finally Cannibalize Itself?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers<\/em>O<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part 1: French Revolutionaries under the Guillotine<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week I offer a few historical hopeful examples of why and how mass hysterias arise, consume, and die off. And I think the same pattern will follow with the \u2018Great Awokening\/BLM\/racialization of everything.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it cannibalizes its own, Woke LTD is exposed as a money-making machine for its elite BLM Marxist architects, and reveals the hypocrisies and careerist self-interests of its corporate and bicoastal elite tag-alongs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

————–<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
George Jacques Danton was guillotined April 5, 1974 during the Reign of Terror<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Part 1: Wokeness Really Will End<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What fueled\u2014and what ended\u2014the Jacobin beheadings, the Hollywood blacklistings, and #MeToo, these flights of collective madness and score-settling? <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

An original, resonant complaint often jumpstarted these movements: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The  French Girondists could not stop rising food costs and seemed incompetent in war, so Jacobins took over with initial public support; <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1940s or early 1950s there were real communists inside the US government and major US institutions that were or had been pro-Soviet at a time when the Russians got the bomb, overran Eastern Europe, and their communist allies took over China;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvey Weinstein was a sexual ogre who for years used his leftwing virtue-signaling exemptions and insider power to seduce, coerce\u2014 and on occasions allegedly rape\u2014young women with absolute impunity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So at first, like a prairie fire, all these combustions spread, as the voices of outraged pledged to end business as usual. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what then ended the rule of the outraged as they quickly became outrageous? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon, the most radical took control, went on their accustomed power-jihads, and leveled accusations without proof that were to be synonymous with guilt. Original revolutionaries themselves were soon targeted as insufficiently revolutionary. Finally a sickened public collective concluded, \u201cIt can\u2019t go on like this\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the Jacobins absorbed, but also cannibalized, the radical Montagnards and Girondins. Erstwhile revolutionaries like Danton and H\u00e9bert were accused of being trimmers and were executed. A cultural proto-Marxism swept France, targeting the church, and all the traditions of the Ancient Regime, even to the extent of renaming the days and months of the year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet by early 1794 the nihilist Reign of Terror was devouring its own, until at least the Thermidors intervened and sent them to the guillotine as purveyors of nihilism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate antidote Napoleon was not far from the horizon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private PapersO Part 1: French Revolutionaries under the Guillotine This week I offer a few historical hopeful examples of why and how mass hysterias arise, consume, and die off. And I think the same pattern will follow with the \u2018Great Awokening\/BLM\/racialization of everything.\u2019  As it cannibalizes its own, Woke LTD is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-3qh","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":13219,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/optimism-inc-part-4-blm-inc\/","url_meta":{"origin":13161,"position":0},"title":"Optimism, Inc. 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Both seem stunned by the Chinese broadsides.\u00a0 Apparently, as elite Americans readily confess to inherent white supremacy and racism\u2014highlighting the complaints of\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-nature-of-chinese-contempt-for-us\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13824,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/what-is-woke-really-about\/","url_meta":{"origin":13161,"position":2},"title":"What Is Woke Really About?","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness Most Americans were as indifferent to the unexpected loss of our Olympic women\u2019s soccer team as they were once excited about their World Cup win.\u00a0 In between was the team\u2019s nonstop politicking, from whining about compensation to virtue signaling their disrespect for the United\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12757,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-brave-new-biden-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":13161,"position":3},"title":"Our Brave New Biden World","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 9, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review America\u00a0traditionally has not reinvented reality after an election, although prior presidential winners have often tried, as in the fashion of our politics. But the new powers of social media, Silicon Valley, and a woke media have made reality-changing now a reality. Suddenly Antifa and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12608,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trump-race-and-class\/","url_meta":{"origin":13161,"position":4},"title":"Trump, Race, and Class","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 10, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review There\u00a0are some stunning indications that the supposedly satanic racist Donald Trump could be polling in some surveys around a 35-40 approval rate among Latinos and 20\u201330 percent among African Americans. Other polls are more equivocal but suggest an unexpected Trump surge among minority voters.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13626,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyores-cabinet-the-paradoxes-of-woke-racism\/","url_meta":{"origin":13161,"position":5},"title":"Eeyore’s Cabinet: The Paradoxes of Woke Racism","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 29, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Private Papers Part One Here are the first three of five observations about our current woke racial mania. 1. Are the non-white elite in government, universities, entertainment, and the corporate world who rail about \u201cwhiteness,\u201d \u201csystemic racism,\u201d and pathological \u201cwhites\u201d in general mostly referring to their\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 12 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 12 comments","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/eeyores-cabinet-the-paradoxes-of-woke-racism\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/ParadoxRacism.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/ParadoxRacism.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/ParadoxRacism.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/ParadoxRacism.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/ParadoxRacism.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13161"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13175,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13161\/revisions\/13175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}