{"id":98246,"date":"2025-10-02T05:00:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T09:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=98246"},"modified":"2025-10-01T13:46:35","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T17:46:35","slug":"the-signature-politics-of-the-unaccountable-classes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/10\/02\/the-signature-politics-of-the-unaccountable-classes\/","title":{"rendered":"The signature politics of the unaccountable classes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On his substack, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lorenzofromoz.net\/p\/the-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the\" target=\"_blank\">Lorenzo Warby<\/a> considers the origins of what we now call &#8220;woke&#8221; politics and how they became the predominant set of beliefs of the people who can&#8217;t be held accountable:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-02-at-13-32-56-The-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the-unaccountable-classes.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-02-at-13-32-56-The-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the-unaccountable-classes-480x403.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"403\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-98247\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-02-at-13-32-56-The-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the-unaccountable-classes-480x403.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-02-at-13-32-56-The-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the-unaccountable-classes-150x126.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-2025-10-02-at-13-32-56-The-lazy-self-righteousness-of-the-unaccountable-classes.png 728w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Western civilisation, over the last two centuries, has gone through the Emancipation Sequence whereby \u2014 taking the Anglosphere pattern \u2014 free people voted to liberate slaves, Christians to get rid of exclusions on Jews, Protestants to get rid of exclusions on Catholics, whites to get rid of exclusions on blacks, men to get rid of exclusions on women, straights to get rid of exclusions on gays and lesbians. We live in free societies of mass prosperity, yet we have highly motivated political networks that think nothing of casting our societies as marked by layers of oppression.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, this is based on a monstrous (and self-serving) inflation of the concept of <em>oppression<\/em>. It also functions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robkhenderson.com\/p\/rage-of-the-falling-elite\" target=\"_blank\">to channel the rage<\/a> of downwardly mobile children of Western elites.<\/p>\n<p>More important still, it is the signature politics of the <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4-hj5uwclmk\" target=\"_blank\">unaccountable classes<\/a>, of those paid to turn up \u2014 as distinct from the accountable classes whose income depends directly on their performance. The dominant politics of the unaccountable classes has acquired a name: it is <em>woke<\/em> politics, the politics of <em>wokery<\/em> or of <em>being woke<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The technical name for <em>wokery<\/em> is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.notonyourteam.co.uk\/p\/trapped-by-philosophys-worst-features\" target=\"_blank\">Critical Constructivism<\/a>. It is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=F-weelkjeL0\" target=\"_blank\">popularisation of Critical Theory<\/a>. I have labelled it <em>Post-Enlightenment Progressivism<\/em>, as it rests on critiques of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Age_of_Enlightenment\" target=\"_blank\">The Enlightenment<\/a>, and rejection of Enlightenment values, while orienting itself towards an imagined future \u2014 one where it is no longer true, as Marx and Engels wrote in <em>The Communist Manifesto<\/em> (1848), that society is based:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That is, of <em>oppression<\/em> as they define it.<\/p>\n<p>Wokery is the currently dominant form of <em>left-progressivism<\/em>. Political scientist Eric Kaufmann <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/ZYsUIdXKkh0?si=kLR3i5_AX11V6s57\" target=\"_blank\">defines &#8220;wokery&#8221; as<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>making sacred of historically marginalised race, gender and sexual minorities.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That is how the Oppressor\/Oppressed template that <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/critical-theory\/\" target=\"_blank\">Critical Theory<\/a> takes from Marxism is popularised in a post civil rights world, using any differences in outcomes between groups as markers of oppression. The Oppressor\/Oppressed template <em>requires<\/em> oppression to be pervasive in contemporary societies, hence psychologist Steven Pinker&#8217;s observation about <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/PnitLNObR7c\" target=\"_blank\">progressives hating progress<\/a>.<sup>1<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>What <em>wokery<\/em> also is, is lazy self-righteousness. The self-righteousness is obvious and pervasive. These folk really do act as if they own morality; as if they can withhold the moral grace of their presence from the wicked, from <em>wrongthinkers<\/em>; as if wrongthinkers are purveyors of moral pollution. This has much to do <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/eGWL6vR-iMQ\" target=\"_blank\">with the dwindling<\/a> of the culture of public debate.<\/p>\n<p>But it is also lazy, in that it massively economises on the use of information and intellectual effort. Much of the appeal of &#8220;wokery&#8221; comes from how remarkably little accurate knowledge it demands. All one has to do is to master the lingo, the linguistic signalling, involved; the pre-set talking points; <a href=\"https:\/\/davidrozado.substack.com\/p\/tialpasj\" target=\"_blank\">which terms of moral abuse apply<\/a> and when; and be willing to engage in any required level of rationalisation and mental gymnastics. Once you do so, the moralised status game of lazy self-righteousness is open for you, with approved positions lined up for one to adopt, all based on semblances of knowing.<\/p>\n<p>This dynamic has much to do with why one side of US politics is far more conformist in its political opinions than the other.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_98248\" style=\"width: 569px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-98248\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right-559x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"559\" height=\"640\" class=\"size-large wp-image-98248\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right-559x640.jpg 559w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right-480x550.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right-131x150.jpg 131w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right-768x879.jpg 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Diversity-of-thought-left-and-right.jpg 1319w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 559px) 100vw, 559px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-98248\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/bjso.12665\" target=\"_blank\">Source<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>The underlying blank slate views about humans means you don&#8217;t have to accept <em>any<\/em> constraints from evolutionary biology. If we are all blank slates, if there are no inherent differences between groups, then all inequalities between groups can be classed as malicious \u2014 as signs of oppression \u2014 so you do not have to bother exploring differences in traits, cultures, life-strategies, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Lazy self-righteousness does not require any thinking about successful and unsuccessful life strategies, about what makes things work, or not work. It does not require much in the way of statistical or mathematical understanding. The most mathematical it gets is whether social outcomes are proportional to a group&#8217;s population share or not.<\/p>\n<p>If a group is doing better than average, they are oppressors. If they are doing worse, they are oppressed. Viewing society through the oppressed\/oppressor mindset always ends up looking for (and finding) <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kulak\" target=\"_blank\"><em>kulaks<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It is a simple metric to adopt, with the self-righteous status game built-in of opposing oppression and supporting the marginalised. No further intellectual effort is required. <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<ol>\n<li><em>Pinker&#8217;s observation that populism is a phenomenon of older voters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/politics\/polling\/2025\/09\/the-young-see-no-future-in-britain\" target=\"_blank\">has not worn well<\/a>. Also, it is a sign how reflexive future-orientated judgements have become, that the voters with the most experience of the EU were most likely to vote against it in the 2016 Brexit referendum passes people by.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On his substack, Lorenzo Warby considers the origins of what we now call &#8220;woke&#8221; politics and how they became the predominant set of beliefs of the people who can&#8217;t be held accountable: Western civilisation, over the last two centuries, has gone through the Emancipation Sequence whereby \u2014 taking the Anglosphere pattern \u2014 free people voted [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53],"tags":[1380,1076,912,1020,76],"class_list":["post-98246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-politics","tag-criticaltheory","tag-karlmarx","tag-privilege","tag-progressives","tag-socialism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pyC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98250,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98246\/revisions\/98250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}