Wokeness seems to embody two features: on one hand, collectivist or groupist ideals; on the other hand, a rejection of reason and truth. Interestingly, the political opponents of wokeness in America and the world tend to reproduce these same two features—with, on the right, more emphasis on collectivist nationalism than tribal groupism. Both strands of wokeness, on the right and the left, are ridiculous and may exceed the limits of conversation. A rational conversation with a clown is difficult.
We have had many illustrations of that recently but let me recall what may be the mother of all wokeness in this wide, non-partisan sense. During the last presidential campaign, the person who was to become the vice president of the United States spread rumors that he rapidly knew to be untrue about Haitians eating American pets in Springfield, Ohio. When confronted with his lies by a journalist, he essentially replied that they were for a good cause (see the review of the whole event in Kris Maher, Valerie Bauerlein, and Townell Hobbs’s, “How the Trump Campaign Ran With Rumors About Pet-Eating Migrants—After Being Told They Weren’t True,” Wall Street Journal, September 18, 2024):
Vance insisted on CNN this past Sunday that he had firsthand accounts of the incidents from constituents, but the media had paid no attention to migrant problems in American cities “until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes.” He added, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
This declaration came after presidential candidate Donald Trump, in a debate with his opponent Kamala Harris, had amplified the false rumors. In his usual style (“in his old and rough way of speaking,” prisco illo dicendi et horrido modo, as Roman historian Livy would repeat from Ab Urbe Condita), Trump declared:
In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating, the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in this country.
Department of Justice lawyers have recently been scolded by judges for incorrect information, a problem that may be due to many departures of career lawyers since the election and the large number of suits against the new administration (“DOJ Slip-Ups Show Challenges of Defending Trump’s Freewheeling Approach,” Wall Street Journal, February 24, 2024). But another factor may be that when the big political bosses lie openly and shamelessly, the value of the truth drops for their subordinates. Eight decades ago, Friedrich Hayek feared that the growth of state intervention would lead to “the end of truth.”
One must be prudent with ad hominem arguments. Arguments should be about arguments. Yet, when a homo does not recognize his errors but doubles down on them, or does not believe in the value of truth, perhaps the reply cannot avoid being ad hominem. If it were true that all Cretans lie, this fact could be taken into account when evaluating a Cretan’s pronouncements. Time is scarce and assuming that all sources of information are similarly credible and deserving of serious consideration is a recipe for intellectual gridlock at best. Where is H.L. Mencken when we need him?
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Conversation with a clown
