Quite a long and worthwhile read. Thanks for sharing this! Adolph Reed Jr's analysis has long resonated with me. The idea that we're ignoring class in favor of race rings so true in my...
Quite a long and worthwhile read. Thanks for sharing this!
Adolph Reed Jr's analysis has long resonated with me. The idea that we're ignoring class in favor of race rings so true in my perspective. Race has been a wedge since before the USA was founded, and it continues to be. It seems so obvious to me that poor rural whites have many grievances in common with poor urban blacks. If they could see that there's more in their circumstance that unites them than divides them, a lot could be accomplished that would greatly benefit both groups.
Then there is this gem:
The situation he deplores isn’t the coming Marxist-Leninist dystopia, but the fact that we are “stuck with stagnant institutions that micromanage” the American people.
Stagnant institutions that micro- manage the American people. All this tone policing, all the hand wringing over language, don't use this word or that... It has a chilling effect on discourse, opens up avenues for bad faith actors, and distracts from conversations about actual issues. It happens all the time in comment sections everywhere. I wish people would be more disciplined in their conversations and stop nitpicking over language and tone.
I see people say this sometimes, but picking your words in a way so as to not make someone feel othered or somehow lesser than seems like hardly an effort. I think it also makes for better...
I see people say this sometimes, but picking your words in a way so as to not make someone feel othered or somehow lesser than seems like hardly an effort. I think it also makes for better conversation when I'm not crudely reminded of my heritage, gender, status or something else in a presumptuous or distracting way that may require me to interject or unwilling to speak at all.
I'm not the youngest guy around and I grew up with different, far more coarse language ingrained in my lexicon, but trying to be more conscious of the people around me has only made it easier to connect to them, not more difficult. Being fairly vanilla in most ways, there's thankfully not that much I have to put up with. The things I hear ("in jest") about other ethnicities or lifestyles sometimes because I'm seen as a safe confidant, however... It really disappoints me in people.
Language and cultural dynamics evolve. If you don't adapt, you're apt to become that person you may have disliked at a younger age because they weren't with the times, thought they could size you up from minute one, told you how to dress "properly" and pull up your jeans, and reminded you constantly that your being a man or woman dictated how you should behave or what you deserved, for example.
And unless you're a leading cultural figure or in a different position of power, you're not likely to get ostracized for crudeness anyway. These are positions that affect lots of people, so it's only natural they are held to higher standards. It's a different sphere to ours. At worst, we follow some sensitivity training if we're at a big institution or company. So I find it difficult to relate on this issue.
I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Having said that, I think a lot of people get frustrated by... feeling that it detracts from people seeing... Whether or not and to what degree...
I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Having said that, I think a lot of people get frustrated by...
nitpicking over language and tone
feeling that it detracts from people seeing...
that there's more in their circumstance that unites them than divides them, [and] a lot could be accomplished that would greatly benefit both groups.
Whether or not and to what degree @arrza and others are correct in this, I won't get into. I think it's case-by-case in online and offline spaces. I will go out on a limb and suggest that assumptions become facts very quickly online.
There's absolutely more that we have in common in our lives than we don't, which is the good thing. That doesn't mean we should overlook how certain factors outside our control (race, gender,...
There's absolutely more that we have in common in our lives than we don't, which is the good thing. That doesn't mean we should overlook how certain factors outside our control (race, gender, orientation, immigration status, etc.) compound and multiply the challenges in our day-to-day.
Social programs/actions that aim to benefit "everyone" without doing extra work to avoid (unconscious) biases, for example, will tend to benefit some more than others unwittingly. Keeping factors like that in mind is valuable, otherwise we'll keep having these divides and tensions despite living standards increasing. If we're already conceptualizing how to tackle income inequalities, that's the best stage to think about how social factors are intertwined to ensure policy meets reality.
I'm not sure how to tackle the issue of people not seeing how this fits into the bigger picture. Creating more equal circumstances requires differential and targeted action to compensate for factors that have disadvantaged certain communities more than others. We used to call this type of evidence-based approach equity policy before it got politicized into "wokeness". Not having proper education about institutional discrimination, intersectionality and things like that certainly doesn't help.
Ostensibly, but I think sometimes people get lost in the sauce, and things become heavily based in cultural implications and implicit meaning which can get exhausting to navigate. This is probably...
I see people say this sometimes, but picking your words in a way so as to not make someone feel othered or somehow lesser than seems like hardly an effort.
Ostensibly, but I think sometimes people get lost in the sauce, and things become heavily based in cultural implications and implicit meaning which can get exhausting to navigate. This is probably a niche experience, but “people of color” has frustrated me for this reason, because about 60% of the time I know from context that, despite not being white in any way whatsoever, I wouldn’t count, and in the 40% I would. But of course it’s always unspoken, so you have to do a deductive game beforehand.
I'm honestly convinced this stems from echo chambers online and not actually talking to people. I hear people complain about overly sensitive pronoun havers blowing up over perceived slights all...
I'm honestly convinced this stems from echo chambers online and not actually talking to people. I hear people complain about overly sensitive pronoun havers blowing up over perceived slights all the time, and as an overly sensitive pronoun haver I make it a point to not do that. All of the ones I know in the real also don't do that because it's a really silly way to go through life. Telling people that something bothered you is part of life.
Me and all the others like me that I talk to don't really care if your language isn't perfect. I would much rather be called a transvestite by someone who's got their heart in the right place and listens to us and lives in the real world than be coddled by some upper class liberal that still believes in trickle down economics. Almost all of my friends are poor, and the behavior of some DEI types to just totally avoid economics as a factor is downright infuriating. But these are not opinions that are reflected by the real people I actually know and talk to.
It's a minority of a minority. They just have a lot of money, and therefore can control the narrative.
I think it depends. For pronouns, I have a similar experience. I've never seen anyone get angry at someone else over pronoun usage in real life, nor have I seen any "weird" pronouns - it's he,...
I think it depends. For pronouns, I have a similar experience. I've never seen anyone get angry at someone else over pronoun usage in real life, nor have I seen any "weird" pronouns - it's he, she, or they.
That being said, I've literally gone to things for "people of color" where they told me "sorry, this is for black and brown people". I've also had the opposite experience, where I guess I was in the implicitly "white" area and someone (non-white) invites me to the "PoC" area.
Fwiw you may be thinking of the term "neopronoun" - I see them a lot in college students and in online spaces more than with colleagues. I've also never seen anyone do anything but calmly correct...
Fwiw you may be thinking of the term "neopronoun" - I see them a lot in college students and in online spaces more than with colleagues. I've also never seen anyone do anything but calmly correct someone - or in queer spaces vent about always having to calmly correct someone.
Same. However, I temper this feeling with the knowledge of my (not necessarily your!) position in the world - a cisgender white man in a colonised country. I still find class a more compelling...
The idea that we're ignoring class in favor of race rings so true in my perspective.
Same. However, I temper this feeling with the knowledge of my (not necessarily your!) position in the world - a cisgender white man in a colonised country. I still find class a more compelling lens, though I have the luxury of not having to face race/gender/income as a barrier.
I see this kind of statement often, but I don't see those things play out. I'm wondering if you could offer some examples of language, or even suggestions of the kinds of language, that are being...
All this tone policing, all the hand wringing over language, don't use this word or that... It has a chilling effect on discourse, opens up avenues for bad faith actors, and distracts from conversations about actual issues. It happens all the time in comment sections everywhere. I wish people would be more disciplined in their conversations and stop nitpicking over language and tone.
I see this kind of statement often, but I don't see those things play out. I'm wondering if you could offer some examples of language, or even suggestions of the kinds of language, that are being "chilled" that shouldn't? I'm seriously asking for examples because it would be useful to understand concretely what you are referring to.
When it comes to bad faith, by which I assume you mean weaponizing identity politics to discredit someone who has an opposing view on some other issue, I'm wondering why whatever it is that discredits that discourse is a necessary part of it? Can't the other issue be talked using tone and language that doesn't need to be / can't be policed in this way?
I have an example. To be clear, I don't find this to be the case myself, but I've seen it happen to others. The context below is that I was going to join this person in meeting up with some of her...
I have an example. To be clear, I don't find this to be the case myself, but I've seen it happen to others.
The context below is that I was going to join this person in meeting up with some of her friends.
We're meeting up with my friend Yan, she's Oriental. And my friend Penny, she's a redhead. Oh, and my friend Rita, who is ... am I allowed to say Mexican? I don't know word I can use.
Oriental is for things, Asian is for people.
Oh, I asked Yan, she says it's ok to say Oriental.
...
You can say Mexican. It's the word for someone from Mexico.
Oh, she's not from Mexico, she's from California.
So my choices now are to talk about phrasing for the 500th time, or move on. If a similar discussion has already happened that day, she'll stop talking and probably tune out, same as when I explain why she shouldn't use the same password for everything. If it's the first time she'll listen, as shown by her double checking with her friend.
These are things some folks are having to relearn, and most of the people I know in real life really are trying. This isn't some racist ready to make trouble, she was describing her friends so I would know who was who.
I do gently correct when it makes sense, but turning every conversation into a lesson isn't really reasonable.
I've seen this same pattern with other folks over 70, trying to do the right thing but feeling like they're somehow always wrong.
In some parts of the world Asian means India/Pakistan/etc, and Oriental means China/Japan/etc. Imagine being Yan, coming to another country thinking of yourself as Oriental, and being told no,...
In some parts of the world Asian means India/Pakistan/etc, and Oriental means China/Japan/etc. Imagine being Yan, coming to another country thinking of yourself as Oriental, and being told no, you're actually from another part of the world! She's literally told you it's fine, why would you correct her?
I was extremely frustrated by this article. I have too many things to even count so I will just cover the broad strokes. To start with, I feel that this was written in such a way as to smuggle...
I was extremely frustrated by this article. I have too many things to even count so I will just cover the broad strokes.
To start with, I feel that this was written in such a way as to smuggle ideas past the reader, disguising the contents or their origins. This is not an academic paper, but they pretend it is with their list of books at the top of the page. It is as if they are saying, “Before you can criticize me, you must read these 1500 pages of other people’s opinions first.” Furthermore he cites these authors not to demonstrate the strengths of his arguements but to hide behind them. It takes forever to actually understand what his position is, and it’s not helped by the bloody awful asides littering the article that remove important context from his words - often slicing sentences apart! It’s inexcusable given their position as editor of the publication.
They also use excessively complicated and rare vocabulary, which makes it unreachable for average people, which is rich considering how much they criticize elites and champions the common man. The article is just oozing with hypocracy. They criticize intellectual elites while constantly endorsing them with references to them. The worst is how much he loves Rufo, a person who has spent the past decade or so with bad faith arguements designed specifically to destroy American institutions like public education. They refer to Rufo so often that it honestly feels as if they only brought up other authors to hide how much they agree with Rufo so people wouldn’t immediately dismiss the article.
This article has the same problem as every other anti-idpol hit piece does. It assumes that we can’t deal with both class and race at the same time. Nobody ever has managed to provide solid reasoning why. We live in a complex world and positive changes need to consider all dimensions, and that includes both class and race obviously!
I could write more but I am going to run late for work at this rate, so I will leave it here.
This is the part where they lost me. "All people should have the same opportunities" and "the people that don't have the same opportunities now should receive assistance while we try to work on...
In the new paradigm, progress no longer meant treating people as individuals or members of the human race—and it might even entail segregation into ethnic “affinity groups” and the like. “Both private actors and public institutions,” Mounk writes, now openly aim to “make the way they treat people depend on the groups to which they belong.” The yearning to transcend racial divisions, a longstanding liberal aspiration, was now dismissed as a form of racism. Some who didn’t get the update in time were shocked to learn around that time that the statement “all lives matter” was highly offensive, and that to declare that they “don’t see race” revealed them to hold an embarrassingly backward sensibility, not a forward-thinking one.
This is the part where they lost me. "All people should have the same opportunities" and "the people that don't have the same opportunities now should receive assistance while we try to work on the harder systemic solutions" are not conflicting ideologies. "All lives matter" was the conservative response to "Black lives matter". There might have been some equivocating and 'both-sides'-ing from centrists who think they're leftists, but it's really frustrating to point to that in particular as "has 'woke-ism' gone too far?"
For me it was when they described Stamped from the Beginning and the 1619 project as "revisionist". While it's arguable that his use of the word is correct, it carries a very negative subtext that...
For me it was when they described Stamped from the Beginning and the 1619 project as "revisionist". While it's arguable that his use of the word is correct, it carries a very negative subtext that betrays their view on the subject. These are works that say "here is the world as we see it and here is painstakingly gathered evidence about why we are here today," and their response to it is "Your opinions are not valid because it doesn't fit the narrative I'm familiar with." They completely disregard the traditions of thought that brought those people to write those words.
This is why I'm so critical of the citations they use in their article. It really does feel like they chose those leftist authors to talk about so that they would have some kind of rhetorical shield against criticisms of being part of the right. A person's opinions don't have to be solely from one side of the aisle or another. If they had been more forthright about their opinions I feel as if I would not have been as upset at them.
It was a way for conservatives to say something that in a vacuum is reasonable and good. But in context it was a clear dismissal of the conversation that was taking place. So they could say these...
It was a way for conservatives to say something that in a vacuum is reasonable and good. But in context it was a clear dismissal of the conversation that was taking place. So they could say these reasonable words, get shot down, and then go crying to their in-group and get consoled for this obvious regression by the woke liberals who now value wokeness over equality.
“Black lives matter” “No, all lives matter!” Is the tit for tat exchange had millions of times in this country and what has colored the meaning of the conservative retort.
I agree that Rufo is (to borrow a lovely American turn of phrase) a total whackadoodle. For me the takeaway from this article is that a lot of good intentions can be remarkably inneffective, as in...
I agree that Rufo is (to borrow a lovely American turn of phrase) a total whackadoodle. For me the takeaway from this article is that a lot of good intentions can be remarkably inneffective, as in the case of Occupy Wall Street.
This is probably down to my ideological bent but I wish that people on the left were as well organised and determined as e.g. the Heritage Foundation. Their operation is incredible. If you talk to them as a journalist they will feed you infinite copy about any topic you want, connect you to lots of conservative 'experts' and generally bombard you with lots and lots of their bullshit on a regular basis. Their pragmatist ideology (i.e. I believe things because they are convenient for me to believe) is really inspiring in some ways and I think generally leftist types should try and adopt these.
For example stating categorically that renewables are cheaper (they are cheaper at source, and probably overall, but figures taking into account all the costs including building + maintain grids, storage, etc are a bit hard to come by), etc.
This really stood out to me. I just finished a book that did the same thing, I'm very glad I could look up words on my e-reader. I think of myself as having a decent vocabulary, but this sort of...
They also use excessively complicated and rare vocabulary, which makes it unreachable for average people, which is rich considering how much they criticize elites and champions the common man.
This really stood out to me. I just finished a book that did the same thing, I'm very glad I could look up words on my e-reader. I think of myself as having a decent vocabulary, but this sort of thing is exhausting to read. In my experience, people do it either because they think it makes them sound smart or because they think it makes their words have more weight.
I don't do it intentionally, I have done it in the past before I correctly gauged the level of vocabulary I should be using. The older I get, the simpler my vocabulary becomes. This is something...
I don't do it intentionally, I have done it in the past before I correctly gauged the level of vocabulary I should be using. The older I get, the simpler my vocabulary becomes.
This is something I've noticed when someone who isn't well versed in a subject decides to explain it to me. Maybe it's wrong to try to figure out why they keep doing that.
This was frustrating to read. It sounds so long decrying identity politics and "neo-wokeness" while misrepresenting what actual leftist/progressive politics are today. To its credit, I think this...
This was frustrating to read. It sounds so long decrying identity politics and "neo-wokeness" while misrepresenting what actual leftist/progressive politics are today. To its credit, I think this is because it does a decent job of criticizing the version of progressive politics that has been co-opted by the Democratic party, but it fails to recognize that an anticapitalist angle still exists here, save for when some of those anticapitalists happen to agree with doing away with identity politics. The fact that the article neglects to discuss intersectionality is telling, because it instead represents "neo-woke" politics as doing away with class in favor of race. Nobody actually wants that! Intersectionality is the recognition that these things are inherently tied together, that they are all in fact the same struggle against the same hegemonic power structures and institutions! I don't know about you, but that's pretty universal to me. The issue is that the current reigning neoliberal institutions (i.e. the Democratic party) has co-opted this ideology, as capitalism does, to erase the class angle, because that would be tantamount to anti-capitalism, and they can't work with that.
So again, I don't think the article makes entirely invalid points, and it's not a terrible read, but it's frustrating that it fails to investigate the ideology it's criticizing beyond the surface level. On a personal level, it's also frustrating that he pretty much only references conservative thinkers (who also serve the purpose of misrepresenting "wokeness").
(select quotes snipped without proper context [a] to inspire discussion with others who have read the article and [b] pique your interest into maybe reading this piece. Please dont respond solely...
(select quotes snipped without proper context [a] to inspire discussion with others who have read the article and [b] pique your interest into maybe reading this piece. Please dont respond solely based on these quotes in this comment thanks~)
DEI ideology in effect claims that a society in which a tiny minority holds most wealth—ours—would be just if only that minority’s racial composition matched the population’s; hence, the pursuit of social justice amounts to diversifying Harvard and the C-suite, even as prospects for the poor and working classes of all races worsen.
...identity politics is at bottom a small-c conservative ideology, not a revolutionary one as its adherents and some of its detractors claim. Its function is to legitimize existing power relations, not overturn them; it does this by expanding bureaucratic oversight, implementing quotas, and the like.
...
Imperial overreach and blowback soured the public on spreading democracy with cruise missiles, and the wrecking of the middle class in the financial crisis, even as the banks were spared, dampened faith in social mobility.
But attempts to build political movements along these lines have repeatedly sputtered out or been reabsorbed into identitarian agendas in recent years. The first was Occupy Wall Street’s invocation of the 99 percent, a big-tent slogan that in practice translated into a movement that alienated all but a few with its fetishization of process over concrete goals. The second was the Sanders campaign, which lost out twice to the Democratic establishment and the activist groups that have become its clients and ideological enforcers. It isn’t clear the class-first cohort has any response to these failures other than to keep trying.
I found it interesting that this article seems to be both a critique of identity politics (or “wokeness”) and of “anti-wokeness”. Here are a few points I took away. I'm not certain I agree with...
I found it interesting that this article seems to be both a critique of identity politics (or “wokeness”) and of “anti-wokeness”. Here are a few points I took away. I'm not certain I agree with them. But feel free to correct me or amplify if you think I'm getting the summary wrong:
Identity politics seem to be driving toward a "racial pessimism". By imbueing the US conscience with a permanent racial stain, identity politics become a power play for a group to assert control and "get their cut" of the current economic system.
A related idea seems to be that a major outworking of identity politics is a shift in the makeup of the elite rather than an erosion of the class system that might benefit the more disadvantaged in the minority/underprivileged groups.
Neither wokeness (for the Democrats) nor anti-wokeness (for the Republicans) have been successful as organizing political principles. The evidence offered for this is a) DeSantis' anti-wokeness platform's failure to find traction on the right and b) mismatch on both the left and the right between the woke/anti-woke dichotomy and positions on the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Some of my thoughts, caveated with the statement that I have a pretty limited philosophy/history/politics background, so if you say, @first_must_burn is just retreading what some guy said 100 years ago, please feel free to point me in that direction.
I think the idea that identity politics can be a way to "get one's cut" presents a compelling criticism that I have not understood until reading this article. I think I only understood identity politics as a move toward equality, not as a shift in the targets of inequality. It's helpful for me to be aware of this as a lens to understand peoples' (negative) response. I'm not totally convinced that this is the whole story of identity politics, and would welcome any other viewpoints people care to suggest.
To speak a little about my own journey in race and gender equality, I think the expansion of my own awareness (as a white cis male) of the difference in lived experience has been good for my compassion and humility. Once I became aware of the difference between being black vs white in how the police treat you or male vs female in how your ideas are received in a business meeting, it changed the way I approach things. It made me aware of problems that didn't seem "real" to me because ... they weren't real for me. But they're real for a lot of people. And listening to people who experience them, personally, has been a real eye opener. I recommend listening. Once I saw that those problems are real, it's hard for me to step away from the idea that we should seek change in these areas.
I think it's helpful to realize that everything that talks about change might not actually be working to effect that change, but I'm also cautious about projecting an attitude of insincerity / cynical manipulation onto people, especially people who suffer under systems that I don't suffer under.
So I guess my question: does it have to be class or identity? If identity politics are failing to unite the left and class politics never get any traction, can we combine them in some way? Is there must be a way to acknowledge the need for improvement in the way underprivileged groups are treated within a class-oriented view of the world?
I'm assuming the answer is "yes, we can deal with identity and class at the same time", but I'm interested in how, or who is talking about ways to do it.
You are right that we can deal with both at the same time. To think that we cannot is to misunderstand the very nature of discourse. It's true that it's difficult to talk about both of them at the...
You are right that we can deal with both at the same time. To think that we cannot is to misunderstand the very nature of discourse. It's true that it's difficult to talk about both of them at the same time in one conversation, but discourse consists of many conversations taking place over time among millions of people.
The fundamental problem with arguments like the author's is that it's extremely nebulous and full of generalizations that are not always true. The case in point is absolutely chocked full of them.
There is a realization that dawned on me a couple years ago, and through everything that happens I just can't shake it: In the U.S. we are living through almost the exact same pattern that...
There is a realization that dawned on me a couple years ago, and through everything that happens I just can't shake it:
In the U.S. we are living through almost the exact same pattern that occurred at the end of the Soviet Union. In almost every way, there is some parallel to large/notable developments at the end of the Soviet Union that we see happening now in the U.S. :
Lose a huge war in Afghanistan
Things just "stop working" at scale. Systems that were reliable for generations start to fail in obvious ways.
People start to believe cheating isn't bad - because "everyone else is doing it, too". If someone is wealthy, it's almost guaranteed they did something immoral/illegal to get that wealth.
People start to believe the country isn't worth fighting for anymore.
Things get "hard to build" (Why does that little bridge take 3 years to build and 2 billion dollars?)
As a result / or part of the "loop" of all the things above: The value of "Sovietness" plummets. It becomes a joke and everyone starts to focus on their own ethnic group as the thing they really "belong" to: Georgian, Uzbek, Russian, Dagestani, etc.
When I read this article, number 6 is what stands out to me as the strongest parallel with what's happening in the U.S. right now with respect to "identity politics".
Sorry for what is essentially a big wall of text. There was a Niall Ferguson opinion piece in Bloomberg which argued this a while back (I submitted a link to this on Tildes). Narrative is...
Sorry for what is essentially a big wall of text.
There was a Niall Ferguson opinion piece in Bloomberg which argued this a while back (I submitted a link to this on Tildes). Narrative is everything in history [1] and in comparing the present to history. I would be super careful when people advocate declinist narratives because quite often the (unstated) implication is "we are in decline, we should do something to fix it because the alternative is really bad, let's do my thing to fix it". Of course the argument may be true, but it's a good rhetorical strategy to advocate a position so a lot of people do it disengenously.
Lose a huge war in Afghanistan
I think the US intervention in Afghanistan and the Soviet one are very, very different. The Soviet union cared a lot more about Afghanistan (which makes intuitive sense as Afghanistan is in their neighbourhood – less so for the Americans), it was bound up in their racist narratives about Afghans and a long history of Russia/Afghan relations [2]. Realistically, the US invaded Afghanistan more as a "side quest" (which trivialises war and suggests an unfortunate determinism to history, but the video game thought experiment might be helpful) than the core event that Soviet-Afghan war was. I think an analogy kind of in the right ballpark is Afghanistan for the Soviets is closer to Vietnam for the Americans than the US invasion of Afghanistan. I think it was terrible for the Afghans (who suffered a violent war are now ruled by the Taliban again) and bad for the US (because it was a big waste of US$2 trillion and 2,000 American lives).
Things just "stop working" at scale. Systems that were reliable for generations start to fail in obvious ways... Things get "hard to build" (Why does that little bridge take 3 years to build and 2 billion dollars?)
Or you could look at it the other way – we have a lot more infrastructure now, we often require higher quality standards, and you only tend to hear about the really expensive construction projects which blow up rather than the cheap ones which deliver.
People start to believe cheating isn't bad - because "everyone else is doing it, too". If someone is wealthy, it's almost guaranteed they did something immoral/illegal to get that wealth.
This kind of narrative has always existed in the US, see e.g. the talk of "robber barons" during the 19th century. "Cheating" is also a pretty loaded term because it assumes that the 'rules' of the 'game' are equitable (or even well-defined). In game theory there's interesting research about games whose rules can change.
People start to believe the country isn't worth fighting for anymore.
In my experience talking to Americans they are extremely (and to me it seems a bit irrationally?) patriotic and jingoistic.
As a result / or part of the "loop" of all the things above: The value of "Sovietness" plummets. It becomes a joke and everyone starts to focus on their own ethnic group as the thing they really "belong" to: Georgian, Uzbek, Russian, Dagestani, etc.
Except that the US has since its conception has been plagued by extreme ethnic divisions?
[1]: E.H. Carr wrote a fantastic book What is History which argues basically this – in one section it looks at how interpretations of the Roman Empire in 19th century Germany were basically a projection of their contemporary issues
[2]: Peter Hopkirk wrote a really interesting book called The Great Game which explores this in great detail, specifically looking at British and Russian spies in the 19th century. British fears that Russia would take over India (or at least advance to India through Asia) were one of the key (and very overlooked) drivers of the Enente Cordial (three way alliance between UK/FR/RU before WW1).
I'm in agreement with you and posit to you and the original OP another time and place in history. America, the roaring 20s. Lots of infrastructure projects, extreme wealth inequality, constant...
I'm in agreement with you and posit to you and the original OP another time and place in history.
America, the roaring 20s. Lots of infrastructure projects, extreme wealth inequality, constant scamming. I mean we even have alcohol/cannabis prohibition as direct analogs not to mention the pandemics.
Also similarly pessimistic, because we all know how those ended. But maybe we can manage to not let that happen this time, who knows!
I really feel like it would be best to discuss most of this at a bar or something, because it is both "a lot" and also "very interesting" to me... And a lot of it is - as you fairly point out -...
I really feel like it would be best to discuss most of this at a bar or something, because it is both "a lot" and also "very interesting" to me... And a lot of it is - as you fairly point out - sort of a matter of viewpoint or interpretation. But one thing I'll pick out that there is clear data on the "not worth fighting for" side of the equation: Americans may seem "jingoistic" but historically, they've backed it up with a healthy "All Volunteer Force". There is growing concensus that this is flat-out no longer sustainable: https://www.cfr.org/blog/bureaucratic-fix-military-recruitment-crisis
I don't have any panacea to offer for this. I hope it's all just a huge coincidence and we'll end up doing better than the Soviets for reasons that are not completely apparent to me. In a way, I just think it's kinda funny that we thought we "won" the Cold War but in so many ways we're increasingly in the same conditions they suffered through.
I regard Communism as a pretentious tragedy at an unbelievable scale... I would never want to live behind one of those Barbed Wire Walls myself ... I just wonder how much having those kinds of forces around kept our own kleptocrats disciplined in a good way that kept some of their more destructive instincts in check.
"You always end up becoming the thing you hated." I wonder if that doesn't apply on a national scale.
Did anyone actually manage to get at a point or a thesis of this article? Was it basically “wokeness bad because it’s elitist and policing, do better anti-woke you got this?” I mean he even...
Did anyone actually manage to get at a point or a thesis of this article? Was it basically “wokeness bad because it’s elitist and policing, do better anti-woke you got this?”
I mean he even managed to recognize that for his favorite anti-woke crowd it was never about free speech at all, but failed to acknowledge the implications of that. He also doesn’t recognize that “wokeness” doesn’t mean restricting speech! Then there’s the entire segue about Israel that is both wildly generalized as to be inaccurate with regards to stated political positions and also totally irrelevant to his actual point other than to clearly demonstrate the lack of compassion in his own worldview.
I think it's basically an essay with criticisms of identity politics. I think it does raise some interesting and valid criticisms, although I don't agree with the author on a lot of things. I...
Did anyone actually manage to get at a point or a thesis of this article?
I think it's basically an essay with criticisms of identity politics. I think it does raise some interesting and valid criticisms, although I don't agree with the author on a lot of things.
Then there’s the entire segue about Israel that is both wildly generalized as to be inaccurate with regards to stated political positions
I think this is partially true, although I think we have a new breed of tankie in people who seem to actively support Hamas and the Houthis (this is even worse as these people usually have zero idea about the Houthis).
I agree Hamas tankies appear to be a thing, but Hamas tankies and “people who care about identity” aren’t the same thing (and don’t have much overlap on my experience). The author conflates them...
I agree Hamas tankies appear to be a thing, but Hamas tankies and “people who care about identity” aren’t the same thing (and don’t have much overlap on my experience). The author conflates them all (because they are both leftist positions and therefore…. Every liberal holds both positions? I guess?) for reasons that don’t seem relevant.
ETA: essays typically have a thesis. What’s the thesis? Rambling on, even with loads of citations, isn’t an essay (or at least not one worth reading as an essay).
Quite a long and worthwhile read. Thanks for sharing this!
Adolph Reed Jr's analysis has long resonated with me. The idea that we're ignoring class in favor of race rings so true in my perspective. Race has been a wedge since before the USA was founded, and it continues to be. It seems so obvious to me that poor rural whites have many grievances in common with poor urban blacks. If they could see that there's more in their circumstance that unites them than divides them, a lot could be accomplished that would greatly benefit both groups.
Then there is this gem:
Stagnant institutions that micro- manage the American people. All this tone policing, all the hand wringing over language, don't use this word or that... It has a chilling effect on discourse, opens up avenues for bad faith actors, and distracts from conversations about actual issues. It happens all the time in comment sections everywhere. I wish people would be more disciplined in their conversations and stop nitpicking over language and tone.
I see people say this sometimes, but picking your words in a way so as to not make someone feel othered or somehow lesser than seems like hardly an effort. I think it also makes for better conversation when I'm not crudely reminded of my heritage, gender, status or something else in a presumptuous or distracting way that may require me to interject or unwilling to speak at all.
I'm not the youngest guy around and I grew up with different, far more coarse language ingrained in my lexicon, but trying to be more conscious of the people around me has only made it easier to connect to them, not more difficult. Being fairly vanilla in most ways, there's thankfully not that much I have to put up with. The things I hear ("in jest") about other ethnicities or lifestyles sometimes because I'm seen as a safe confidant, however... It really disappoints me in people.
Language and cultural dynamics evolve. If you don't adapt, you're apt to become that person you may have disliked at a younger age because they weren't with the times, thought they could size you up from minute one, told you how to dress "properly" and pull up your jeans, and reminded you constantly that your being a man or woman dictated how you should behave or what you deserved, for example.
And unless you're a leading cultural figure or in a different position of power, you're not likely to get ostracized for crudeness anyway. These are positions that affect lots of people, so it's only natural they are held to higher standards. It's a different sphere to ours. At worst, we follow some sensitivity training if we're at a big institution or company. So I find it difficult to relate on this issue.
I pretty much agree with everything you've said. Having said that, I think a lot of people get frustrated by...
feeling that it detracts from people seeing...
Whether or not and to what degree @arrza and others are correct in this, I won't get into. I think it's case-by-case in online and offline spaces. I will go out on a limb and suggest that assumptions become facts very quickly online.
There's absolutely more that we have in common in our lives than we don't, which is the good thing. That doesn't mean we should overlook how certain factors outside our control (race, gender, orientation, immigration status, etc.) compound and multiply the challenges in our day-to-day.
Social programs/actions that aim to benefit "everyone" without doing extra work to avoid (unconscious) biases, for example, will tend to benefit some more than others unwittingly. Keeping factors like that in mind is valuable, otherwise we'll keep having these divides and tensions despite living standards increasing. If we're already conceptualizing how to tackle income inequalities, that's the best stage to think about how social factors are intertwined to ensure policy meets reality.
I'm not sure how to tackle the issue of people not seeing how this fits into the bigger picture. Creating more equal circumstances requires differential and targeted action to compensate for factors that have disadvantaged certain communities more than others. We used to call this type of evidence-based approach equity policy before it got politicized into "wokeness". Not having proper education about institutional discrimination, intersectionality and things like that certainly doesn't help.
Ostensibly, but I think sometimes people get lost in the sauce, and things become heavily based in cultural implications and implicit meaning which can get exhausting to navigate. This is probably a niche experience, but “people of color” has frustrated me for this reason, because about 60% of the time I know from context that, despite not being white in any way whatsoever, I wouldn’t count, and in the 40% I would. But of course it’s always unspoken, so you have to do a deductive game beforehand.
I'm honestly convinced this stems from echo chambers online and not actually talking to people. I hear people complain about overly sensitive pronoun havers blowing up over perceived slights all the time, and as an overly sensitive pronoun haver I make it a point to not do that. All of the ones I know in the real also don't do that because it's a really silly way to go through life. Telling people that something bothered you is part of life.
Me and all the others like me that I talk to don't really care if your language isn't perfect. I would much rather be called a transvestite by someone who's got their heart in the right place and listens to us and lives in the real world than be coddled by some upper class liberal that still believes in trickle down economics. Almost all of my friends are poor, and the behavior of some DEI types to just totally avoid economics as a factor is downright infuriating. But these are not opinions that are reflected by the real people I actually know and talk to.
It's a minority of a minority. They just have a lot of money, and therefore can control the narrative.
I think it depends. For pronouns, I have a similar experience. I've never seen anyone get angry at someone else over pronoun usage in real life, nor have I seen any "weird" pronouns - it's he, she, or they.
That being said, I've literally gone to things for "people of color" where they told me "sorry, this is for black and brown people". I've also had the opposite experience, where I guess I was in the implicitly "white" area and someone (non-white) invites me to the "PoC" area.
Fwiw you may be thinking of the term "neopronoun" - I see them a lot in college students and in online spaces more than with colleagues. I've also never seen anyone do anything but calmly correct someone - or in queer spaces vent about always having to calmly correct someone.
Same. However, I temper this feeling with the knowledge of my (not necessarily your!) position in the world - a cisgender white man in a colonised country. I still find class a more compelling lens, though I have the luxury of not having to face race/gender/income as a barrier.
I see this kind of statement often, but I don't see those things play out. I'm wondering if you could offer some examples of language, or even suggestions of the kinds of language, that are being "chilled" that shouldn't? I'm seriously asking for examples because it would be useful to understand concretely what you are referring to.
When it comes to bad faith, by which I assume you mean weaponizing identity politics to discredit someone who has an opposing view on some other issue, I'm wondering why whatever it is that discredits that discourse is a necessary part of it? Can't the other issue be talked using tone and language that doesn't need to be / can't be policed in this way?
I have an example. To be clear, I don't find this to be the case myself, but I've seen it happen to others.
The context below is that I was going to join this person in meeting up with some of her friends.
Oriental is for things, Asian is for people.
...
You can say Mexican. It's the word for someone from Mexico.
So my choices now are to talk about phrasing for the 500th time, or move on. If a similar discussion has already happened that day, she'll stop talking and probably tune out, same as when I explain why she shouldn't use the same password for everything. If it's the first time she'll listen, as shown by her double checking with her friend.
These are things some folks are having to relearn, and most of the people I know in real life really are trying. This isn't some racist ready to make trouble, she was describing her friends so I would know who was who.
I do gently correct when it makes sense, but turning every conversation into a lesson isn't really reasonable.
I've seen this same pattern with other folks over 70, trying to do the right thing but feeling like they're somehow always wrong.
In some parts of the world Asian means India/Pakistan/etc, and Oriental means China/Japan/etc. Imagine being Yan, coming to another country thinking of yourself as Oriental, and being told no, you're actually from another part of the world! She's literally told you it's fine, why would you correct her?
I hesitated to give an example because I had a feeling it'd be picked apart.
Thank you for another example.
I was extremely frustrated by this article. I have too many things to even count so I will just cover the broad strokes.
To start with, I feel that this was written in such a way as to smuggle ideas past the reader, disguising the contents or their origins. This is not an academic paper, but they pretend it is with their list of books at the top of the page. It is as if they are saying, “Before you can criticize me, you must read these 1500 pages of other people’s opinions first.” Furthermore he cites these authors not to demonstrate the strengths of his arguements but to hide behind them. It takes forever to actually understand what his position is, and it’s not helped by the bloody awful asides littering the article that remove important context from his words - often slicing sentences apart! It’s inexcusable given their position as editor of the publication.
They also use excessively complicated and rare vocabulary, which makes it unreachable for average people, which is rich considering how much they criticize elites and champions the common man. The article is just oozing with hypocracy. They criticize intellectual elites while constantly endorsing them with references to them. The worst is how much he loves Rufo, a person who has spent the past decade or so with bad faith arguements designed specifically to destroy American institutions like public education. They refer to Rufo so often that it honestly feels as if they only brought up other authors to hide how much they agree with Rufo so people wouldn’t immediately dismiss the article.
This article has the same problem as every other anti-idpol hit piece does. It assumes that we can’t deal with both class and race at the same time. Nobody ever has managed to provide solid reasoning why. We live in a complex world and positive changes need to consider all dimensions, and that includes both class and race obviously!
I could write more but I am going to run late for work at this rate, so I will leave it here.
This is the part where they lost me. "All people should have the same opportunities" and "the people that don't have the same opportunities now should receive assistance while we try to work on the harder systemic solutions" are not conflicting ideologies. "All lives matter" was the conservative response to "Black lives matter". There might have been some equivocating and 'both-sides'-ing from centrists who think they're leftists, but it's really frustrating to point to that in particular as "has 'woke-ism' gone too far?"
For me it was when they described Stamped from the Beginning and the 1619 project as "revisionist". While it's arguable that his use of the word is correct, it carries a very negative subtext that betrays their view on the subject. These are works that say "here is the world as we see it and here is painstakingly gathered evidence about why we are here today," and their response to it is "Your opinions are not valid because it doesn't fit the narrative I'm familiar with." They completely disregard the traditions of thought that brought those people to write those words.
This is why I'm so critical of the citations they use in their article. It really does feel like they chose those leftist authors to talk about so that they would have some kind of rhetorical shield against criticisms of being part of the right. A person's opinions don't have to be solely from one side of the aisle or another. If they had been more forthright about their opinions I feel as if I would not have been as upset at them.
It was a way for conservatives to say something that in a vacuum is reasonable and good. But in context it was a clear dismissal of the conversation that was taking place. So they could say these reasonable words, get shot down, and then go crying to their in-group and get consoled for this obvious regression by the woke liberals who now value wokeness over equality.
“Black lives matter” “No, all lives matter!” Is the tit for tat exchange had millions of times in this country and what has colored the meaning of the conservative retort.
I agree that Rufo is (to borrow a lovely American turn of phrase) a total whackadoodle. For me the takeaway from this article is that a lot of good intentions can be remarkably inneffective, as in the case of Occupy Wall Street.
This is probably down to my ideological bent but I wish that people on the left were as well organised and determined as e.g. the Heritage Foundation. Their operation is incredible. If you talk to them as a journalist they will feed you infinite copy about any topic you want, connect you to lots of conservative 'experts' and generally bombard you with lots and lots of their bullshit on a regular basis. Their pragmatist ideology (i.e. I believe things because they are convenient for me to believe) is really inspiring in some ways and I think generally leftist types should try and adopt these.
For example stating categorically that renewables are cheaper (they are cheaper at source, and probably overall, but figures taking into account all the costs including building + maintain grids, storage, etc are a bit hard to come by), etc.
This really stood out to me. I just finished a book that did the same thing, I'm very glad I could look up words on my e-reader. I think of myself as having a decent vocabulary, but this sort of thing is exhausting to read. In my experience, people do it either because they think it makes them sound smart or because they think it makes their words have more weight.
I don't do it intentionally, I have done it in the past before I correctly gauged the level of vocabulary I should be using. The older I get, the simpler my vocabulary becomes.
This is something I've noticed when someone who isn't well versed in a subject decides to explain it to me. Maybe it's wrong to try to figure out why they keep doing that.
This was frustrating to read. It sounds so long decrying identity politics and "neo-wokeness" while misrepresenting what actual leftist/progressive politics are today. To its credit, I think this is because it does a decent job of criticizing the version of progressive politics that has been co-opted by the Democratic party, but it fails to recognize that an anticapitalist angle still exists here, save for when some of those anticapitalists happen to agree with doing away with identity politics. The fact that the article neglects to discuss intersectionality is telling, because it instead represents "neo-woke" politics as doing away with class in favor of race. Nobody actually wants that! Intersectionality is the recognition that these things are inherently tied together, that they are all in fact the same struggle against the same hegemonic power structures and institutions! I don't know about you, but that's pretty universal to me. The issue is that the current reigning neoliberal institutions (i.e. the Democratic party) has co-opted this ideology, as capitalism does, to erase the class angle, because that would be tantamount to anti-capitalism, and they can't work with that.
So again, I don't think the article makes entirely invalid points, and it's not a terrible read, but it's frustrating that it fails to investigate the ideology it's criticizing beyond the surface level. On a personal level, it's also frustrating that he pretty much only references conservative thinkers (who also serve the purpose of misrepresenting "wokeness").
(select quotes snipped without proper context [a] to inspire discussion with others who have read the article and [b] pique your interest into maybe reading this piece. Please dont respond solely based on these quotes in this comment thanks~)
...
I found it interesting that this article seems to be both a critique of identity politics (or “wokeness”) and of “anti-wokeness”. Here are a few points I took away. I'm not certain I agree with them. But feel free to correct me or amplify if you think I'm getting the summary wrong:
Some of my thoughts, caveated with the statement that I have a pretty limited philosophy/history/politics background, so if you say, @first_must_burn is just retreading what some guy said 100 years ago, please feel free to point me in that direction.
I think the idea that identity politics can be a way to "get one's cut" presents a compelling criticism that I have not understood until reading this article. I think I only understood identity politics as a move toward equality, not as a shift in the targets of inequality. It's helpful for me to be aware of this as a lens to understand peoples' (negative) response. I'm not totally convinced that this is the whole story of identity politics, and would welcome any other viewpoints people care to suggest.
To speak a little about my own journey in race and gender equality, I think the expansion of my own awareness (as a white cis male) of the difference in lived experience has been good for my compassion and humility. Once I became aware of the difference between being black vs white in how the police treat you or male vs female in how your ideas are received in a business meeting, it changed the way I approach things. It made me aware of problems that didn't seem "real" to me because ... they weren't real for me. But they're real for a lot of people. And listening to people who experience them, personally, has been a real eye opener. I recommend listening. Once I saw that those problems are real, it's hard for me to step away from the idea that we should seek change in these areas.
I think it's helpful to realize that everything that talks about change might not actually be working to effect that change, but I'm also cautious about projecting an attitude of insincerity / cynical manipulation onto people, especially people who suffer under systems that I don't suffer under.
So I guess my question: does it have to be class or identity? If identity politics are failing to unite the left and class politics never get any traction, can we combine them in some way? Is there must be a way to acknowledge the need for improvement in the way underprivileged groups are treated within a class-oriented view of the world?
I'm assuming the answer is "yes, we can deal with identity and class at the same time", but I'm interested in how, or who is talking about ways to do it.
You are right that we can deal with both at the same time. To think that we cannot is to misunderstand the very nature of discourse. It's true that it's difficult to talk about both of them at the same time in one conversation, but discourse consists of many conversations taking place over time among millions of people.
The fundamental problem with arguments like the author's is that it's extremely nebulous and full of generalizations that are not always true. The case in point is absolutely chocked full of them.
There is a realization that dawned on me a couple years ago, and through everything that happens I just can't shake it:
In the U.S. we are living through almost the exact same pattern that occurred at the end of the Soviet Union. In almost every way, there is some parallel to large/notable developments at the end of the Soviet Union that we see happening now in the U.S. :
Lose a huge war in Afghanistan
Things just "stop working" at scale. Systems that were reliable for generations start to fail in obvious ways.
People start to believe cheating isn't bad - because "everyone else is doing it, too". If someone is wealthy, it's almost guaranteed they did something immoral/illegal to get that wealth.
People start to believe the country isn't worth fighting for anymore.
Things get "hard to build" (Why does that little bridge take 3 years to build and 2 billion dollars?)
As a result / or part of the "loop" of all the things above: The value of "Sovietness" plummets. It becomes a joke and everyone starts to focus on their own ethnic group as the thing they really "belong" to: Georgian, Uzbek, Russian, Dagestani, etc.
When I read this article, number 6 is what stands out to me as the strongest parallel with what's happening in the U.S. right now with respect to "identity politics".
Sorry for what is essentially a big wall of text.
There was a Niall Ferguson opinion piece in Bloomberg which argued this a while back (I submitted a link to this on Tildes). Narrative is everything in history [1] and in comparing the present to history. I would be super careful when people advocate declinist narratives because quite often the (unstated) implication is "we are in decline, we should do something to fix it because the alternative is really bad, let's do my thing to fix it". Of course the argument may be true, but it's a good rhetorical strategy to advocate a position so a lot of people do it disengenously.
I think the US intervention in Afghanistan and the Soviet one are very, very different. The Soviet union cared a lot more about Afghanistan (which makes intuitive sense as Afghanistan is in their neighbourhood – less so for the Americans), it was bound up in their racist narratives about Afghans and a long history of Russia/Afghan relations [2]. Realistically, the US invaded Afghanistan more as a "side quest" (which trivialises war and suggests an unfortunate determinism to history, but the video game thought experiment might be helpful) than the core event that Soviet-Afghan war was. I think an analogy kind of in the right ballpark is Afghanistan for the Soviets is closer to Vietnam for the Americans than the US invasion of Afghanistan. I think it was terrible for the Afghans (who suffered a violent war are now ruled by the Taliban again) and bad for the US (because it was a big waste of US$2 trillion and 2,000 American lives).
Or you could look at it the other way – we have a lot more infrastructure now, we often require higher quality standards, and you only tend to hear about the really expensive construction projects which blow up rather than the cheap ones which deliver.
This kind of narrative has always existed in the US, see e.g. the talk of "robber barons" during the 19th century. "Cheating" is also a pretty loaded term because it assumes that the 'rules' of the 'game' are equitable (or even well-defined). In game theory there's interesting research about games whose rules can change.
In my experience talking to Americans they are extremely (and to me it seems a bit irrationally?) patriotic and jingoistic.
Except that the US has since its conception has been plagued by extreme ethnic divisions?
[1]: E.H. Carr wrote a fantastic book What is History which argues basically this – in one section it looks at how interpretations of the Roman Empire in 19th century Germany were basically a projection of their contemporary issues
[2]: Peter Hopkirk wrote a really interesting book called The Great Game which explores this in great detail, specifically looking at British and Russian spies in the 19th century. British fears that Russia would take over India (or at least advance to India through Asia) were one of the key (and very overlooked) drivers of the Enente Cordial (three way alliance between UK/FR/RU before WW1).
I'm in agreement with you and posit to you and the original OP another time and place in history.
America, the roaring 20s. Lots of infrastructure projects, extreme wealth inequality, constant scamming. I mean we even have alcohol/cannabis prohibition as direct analogs not to mention the pandemics.
Also similarly pessimistic, because we all know how those ended. But maybe we can manage to not let that happen this time, who knows!
I really feel like it would be best to discuss most of this at a bar or something, because it is both "a lot" and also "very interesting" to me... And a lot of it is - as you fairly point out - sort of a matter of viewpoint or interpretation. But one thing I'll pick out that there is clear data on the "not worth fighting for" side of the equation: Americans may seem "jingoistic" but historically, they've backed it up with a healthy "All Volunteer Force". There is growing concensus that this is flat-out no longer sustainable:
https://www.cfr.org/blog/bureaucratic-fix-military-recruitment-crisis
I don't have any panacea to offer for this. I hope it's all just a huge coincidence and we'll end up doing better than the Soviets for reasons that are not completely apparent to me. In a way, I just think it's kinda funny that we thought we "won" the Cold War but in so many ways we're increasingly in the same conditions they suffered through.
I regard Communism as a pretentious tragedy at an unbelievable scale... I would never want to live behind one of those Barbed Wire Walls myself ... I just wonder how much having those kinds of forces around kept our own kleptocrats disciplined in a good way that kept some of their more destructive instincts in check.
"You always end up becoming the thing you hated." I wonder if that doesn't apply on a national scale.
Did anyone actually manage to get at a point or a thesis of this article? Was it basically “wokeness bad because it’s elitist and policing, do better anti-woke you got this?”
I mean he even managed to recognize that for his favorite anti-woke crowd it was never about free speech at all, but failed to acknowledge the implications of that. He also doesn’t recognize that “wokeness” doesn’t mean restricting speech! Then there’s the entire segue about Israel that is both wildly generalized as to be inaccurate with regards to stated political positions and also totally irrelevant to his actual point other than to clearly demonstrate the lack of compassion in his own worldview.
Can you expand on that? Because to me, it clearly does. In fact, almost the entirety of it, as actually practiced on the internet, is policing speech.
I think it's basically an essay with criticisms of identity politics. I think it does raise some interesting and valid criticisms, although I don't agree with the author on a lot of things.
I think this is partially true, although I think we have a new breed of tankie in people who seem to actively support Hamas and the Houthis (this is even worse as these people usually have zero idea about the Houthis).
I agree Hamas tankies appear to be a thing, but Hamas tankies and “people who care about identity” aren’t the same thing (and don’t have much overlap on my experience). The author conflates them all (because they are both leftist positions and therefore…. Every liberal holds both positions? I guess?) for reasons that don’t seem relevant.
ETA: essays typically have a thesis. What’s the thesis? Rambling on, even with loads of citations, isn’t an essay (or at least not one worth reading as an essay).