Rob Henderson on Why Upper Middle Class Whites Have Gone Woke

Quillette contributor and Cambridge PhD student Rob Henderson on how cancel culture became one of America’s most successful exports and why upper middle class whites have embraced the woke agenda. (Click here to listen to the podcast.) Rob recently wrote a piece for Quillette entitled America Exports Cancel Culture to the World.
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[@dawnemile7499]

Interesting that the woke phenomena reminds me of certain people ordering specialty coffees at Starbucks. It shows that you are trendy and with it in a certain group.

[@mark4asp]

Because it's trendy to be obnoxious today?

[@toomuchinformation9795]

its a fad and fads suck

[@mark4asp]

@@toomuchinformation9795 It is a symptom of a sickness; a pathology. Explaining the why and how of the fad will reveal this sickness. Clue: the ultimate cause was not 'leftism', nor too much 'freedom', and liberalism, nor even The Internet, ...

[@zeenuf00]

​@@mark4aspyes

[@ricochetsixtyten]

Its an identity, identity formation is very important especially to people in their 20s, thats not exclusive to the progressive isle though, both sides hold on to their identities and showcase them to others to feel like a part of the in-group. The Budweiser protest and laying down on the street to block an ambulance are not so different from eachother, both signal to the group that they want to be seen as the good guys.

[@nicoledickens2366]

20:21 right on the money. The ruling class couldn't co-opt the Occupy movement so they hegemonicly absorbed all the trappings of it while rejecting the basic class analysis.

[@davidwestwater2219]

I live in the hood. The only place I've ever seen A black lives Matter sign is in winchester mass, the upper middle class town that I came from.

[@dreamsofturtles1828]

I live in a fairly small, used to be blue collar town, mostly white, with well to do people suddenly buying up properties (and driving up all real estate making it out of reach for anyone one of any color to buy a home.) It is these new, wealthy people putting up BLM signs in their yards. It is bizzare to me.

[@Draconisrex1]

It's actually upper-middle-class WOMEN who are the drivers of wokeness. Studies tell us that men haven't changed.

[@pedrob3953]

It isn't American soft power, it's quite a hard power imposed from above from American universities and American corporations. Corporate culture is imposed from the US headquarters top-down. Social sciences professors and researchers do their PhDs in the US, collaborate with US academics, and then lead funding agencies, which will only fund the "right" proposals. And so on.

[@bwake]

I think the activists are counting coup. They score prestige points, which raise their status with people they care about. There doesn’t really need to be a material benefit. Success in pulling down a statue gets the ringleader laid.

[@billbadson7598]

This is especially the case when all their material needs are accounted for. They live in such abundance that they don't need any more material gain, they're at the point where more money ceases to bring more happiness. Social status is the only thing left to gain.

[@mark4asp]

We can't really call them activists can we? Unless, we call The Inquisition "activist".

[@XXXX-yc6wv]

Renaming of a sports team is "economically costless"? That's absurd. Rebranding is an extraordinarily costly thing to force any organization to do.

[@mark4asp]

Unless your previous brand becomes very toxic - in which case not rebranding will be the "extraordinarily costly thing".

[@XXXX-yc6wv]

@@mark4asp It is still extraordinarily costly, all you are suggesting is that there is a scenario in which not doing it may be more costly. If two things are costly, one being more so doesn't diminish the cost of the other. Beside which, that is not at all the statement Henderson made. He specifically said that rebranding isn't costly. That is utter nonsense.

[@jones6119]

Breath of fresh air.

[@tonys9102]

Nice to hear a reference to Charles Dickens' "Bleak House" at about 25 minutes in. Who would have though that Mrs. Jellyby would turn out to be the character of his that predicted the people of the future?

[@goldenvulture6818]

Non-Woke and Anti-Woke individuals aren't limited to just conservatives and right-wingers. There are non-woke/anti-woke liberals and non-woke/anti-woke left-wingers.

[@crazierthan-u7571]

These days America looks more like a cultural pied piper than a cultural leader.

[@SF2036]

I wish I had been bestowed such a superpower that enables me to determine how unfair, difficult or valuable someone’s life is based solely or primarily on their physical characteristics.

[@badvsbads391]

By far the biggest group of English speakers on the internet are Americans. People see what the group is doing and are influenced by it and the group is mainly American. If some other country was half the internet they'd be the main influence instead.

[@tedpikul1]

Some useful psychological insights...Consider that another factor, which may be related to the spread of this culture, is that it's not entirely grassroots. It's very useful to be able to control upper-class would-be leftists.

[@henrylicious]

I would respectfully argue its MOSTLY not grassroots.

[@jpguthrie6669]

You need a hot fire and a heavy hammer to make steel, not to mention a lot of iron and coal. A lot goes into a forge, a lot less comes out as a strong, hard, yet, flexible piece of steel. Previous generations had to endure the heat and the beating from a young age, this made them strong, able, and grateful to have survived the process. Generations today endure nothing of the hardships their ancestors had to face. I remember reading an old book about the aftermath of the Battle of Pinkie in Scotland, in which most of the men were killed, leaving women, children, and old people to shift for themselves without the protection of their husbands and fathers in what was a violent age. Of a family in which the father, his brother, and his oldest son were killed in battle, leaving a wife, a 5-year-old girl, and two elderly farmhands who were forced to flee their home with nothing but an old pony and a bag full of keepsakes, and no idea where they would get their next meal. Scenes like this were the reality of human life for thousands of years, and it was these hardships which forced people to form societies, establish laws, and enforce morality, and to use their tendency toward violence to one another in more productive ways. My grandfather was one of 12 children who lived on a rural farm, his father was an ill-educated but hardworking man, his mother was a fearless person who took no nonsense from anyone (having 12 kids makes you tough). In those days poverty was never more than a few steps a way, too dry a year or two wet a year could mean ruin. The reason for having so many kids was to provide additional sources of income for the family. At the age of 8, my grandfather, like his siblings, worked in factories, giving all their earnings to the family. When they grew big enough to do real labor, they worked in the fields. Due to the very hard work of every member of the family, the hard times were overcome, the land paid off, and more land added. The children were enabled to live much better lives than their parents, and their grandchildren (like myself), much better lives. I didn't have to climb into a giant textile weaving machine to tie broken threads at the age of 8 for 50 cents per day, and I didn't have to learn to drive a team of horses to pull a plow at the age of 12. My grandfather was a happy many in his old age, he had worked hard, and was able to enjoy the fruits of his labor, without ever taking a cent from the state other than when he spent 13 years of his life a soldier, the last 4 of those in wartime, in which he was one of only two survivors of his entire troop which had been deployed to fight the Japanese. He became sick for a number of months in his older age, the state sent him food stamps to help himself and my grandmother. He sent them back saying that a man who couldn't pay for his own food would be better off dead.

[@central_scrutinizr]

This is some great perspective. I will remember this comment next time I think I’m having a bad day. Thank you.

[@pedroluciano2643]

I agree with most of this. I have been giving it several names in arguments with friends and family. NeoAmericana!

[@chamberpot969]

Lemmings streaming to the edge of a cliff, and turkeys voting for Christmas.

[@Larindarr]

the woke moement is the weakness of forsaking the self for membership over true authenticity.

[@dreamsofturtles1828]

Your comment really hit me. Yesterday i joined my first book club. They met in a fairly wealthy, gated community- new for me. I learned very quickly to be careful what i said. Learning subtle social cues was #1. I felt i could not be myself and i came home very anxious.

[@nicoledickens2366]

25:07 we call em champagne liberals.

[@rogerbradbury9713]

They've been around for a long time.They used to be called champagne socialists.

[@nicoledickens2366]

@@rogerbradbury9713 truth.

[@mrharpable]

Champagne socialists aka limousine liberals

[@nicoledickens2366]

@@mrharpable haven't heard that one! Thank you for expanding my vocabulary. 🥸😘

[@mark4asp]

They aren't liberal. They are an extremely obnoxious inquisition. Illiberal liberals?

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

Good use of the word 'denuded'.

[@scarletpimpernel230]

16:36: "I think a lot of older people are quite cowardly...." Whether or not they're cowardly, the question is whether the institutional incentives facing them encourage 'cowardice' or not. And the answer there is clear: in many cases, increasingly, because of the affirmative actions laws and regulations enforced by the Civil Rights Acts and their respective bureaucracies EEOC and OCR, and educational accreditation agencies for colleges, if you refuse to a) swear to a medical license incorporating DEI, you won't get that license. Is that cowardice to want to practice medicine after preparing for it your whole life? b) if you refuse to attend a diversity training seminar in your company, your career prospects will be diminished or you will be fired c) if you say anything 'hostile' to women or feminist ideology, your company, at threat of huge legal liability, will reprimand you and may subsequently fire you. Americans didn't suddenly BECOME more cowardly. What changed was the a) ideology created in our universities and spread to the wider culture since WWII by the huge increase in governmental funding, and b) the huge liabilities that these institutions face if they don't comply with Woke and affirmative action policies. Again, I've covered this in depth on my channel. FIRST came the politico-economic changes. THEN came the ideology. The ideology thus has been created, and its spread privileged, by the state. 'Free speech' can't exist without a classically liberal society, which means a strict and consistent protection of property rights. Public education is a direct violation of that civilizational prerequisite.

[@dawnemile7499]

That's why they are cowards. Instead of organizing against the totalitarianism, they kept their head down and complied. That's cowardice, the way Germans did toward the threats of the Nazi party. They are not admired for it.

[@scarletpimpernel230]

@Dawn: The point I'm making is that 'courage' won't solve the problem. Because without knowing what to have the courage to do, the ideology and it's institutionalization will continue. What will solve the problem? 1) removing the governmental influence on American education in its entirety (broadly understood, 'public education'): a) no federal funding of students, and reduced complementary support for governmental projects b) elimination of all tax exemptions, like for income, capital gains, and property tax for private colleges, which allow them to be more liberal and Woke c) elimination of federal accreditation, or at least the necessity for it for getting federal funds d) elimination of tenure, which supports creating a liberal professoriate 2) no affirmation action laws or rules affecting higher education a) meaning essentially repeal of Titles VII and IX, b) and no corresponding federal bureaucracies such as the OCR, EEOC, or others cramming Wokeness in action and thought down student's throats. This would destroy Wokeness, whether implemented with 'courage' or in a 'cowardly way'. But courage itself, to resist? It will, even if effective, be much less effective than attacking the causes of the emergence of this state-supported and privileged ideology. Because the above give the Woke REAL POWER, and they will use it to punish those who resist.

[@pedrob3953]

There's a difference between something that "makes sense" and that is actually true. You have actually to prove it.

[@mark4asp]

Now Toby is calling Woke a controlled opposition. It certainly feels that way to me!

[@williambolton4698]

I was brought up in a home in the 1960's with an outside toilet and no bath. During that period, the class system was overt and strong. Working class people were remorselessly bullied by those in higher social groups. The level of control and discrimination applied at that time has been forgotten. Police forces habitually beat working people as a tool of civil control (happened to me just walking down the street). All “authority” figures (managers, doctors, lawyers, architects, etc) were drawn from upper or middle-class families who sat at a point on the social pyramid above the vast mass of the working class. The fear that underpinned the control of their social “inferiors” survives to the present day and is now expressed by the children and grandchildren of the upper and middle class as woke attempts to “protect” minorities from the brutal indigenous working class. It’s disgusting, it's wrong and it is rooted in class snobbery.

[@richardouvrier3078]

Sophisticated job creation scheme.

[@85AngelRogue]

Does rob Henderson have a KZbin channel?

[@bwake]

Cowardice, or they have hostages to fortune?

[@clifb.3521]

Are we exporting it or or are other countries importing it? You got to take responsibility for your own actions other countries if the US jumped off a bridge, would you? What does that say about you? Or us together sauce And stuff like that

[@scarletpimpernel230]

8:10: "The way that I see it is that people are very quick to adopt what I see to be high status opinions...people are much more likely to adopt that belief themselves." None of that explains why high-status universities which previously WEREN'T Woke have now become or are becoming Woke. And, as I explain on my channel, that was and is directly caused by two essential politico-economic factors which both Toby and Rob miss: a) the privileging of Woke beliefs by the enormous increase in state-funding of higher education in America since WWII, as documented for example in Bruce Bawer's 'Victim's Revolution', which enormous increase of funding was used throughout the U.S. to fund thousands of departments in black, women's, queer, fat, indigenous, and other left-wing scholars and courses, who then indoctrinated in the coming decades a huge increase in students, whose tuition was subsidized ALSO by the government. In effect, the U.S. governmental influence CREATED Woke ideology, and then subsidized a huge increase in students to get INDOCTRINATED in it. b) Titles VII and IX of the Civil Rights Acts, which enforce precisely a behavioral conformity to Woke doctrines, and make it very dangerous to oppose them professionally or legally. Institutions which fight this can receive enormous negative judgments against them. In addition, tenure in higher education significantly favors the gradual increase over time in liberal ideas, which is why 90+ percent of many disciplines are now liberal or Woke.

[@blacklot97]

Do other countries see similar trends? Are non-american post secondary institutions more or less 'woke' than american ones?

[@scarletpimpernel230]

@Blacklot: My theory would likely implicate a) the degree of public support of higher education, b) the degree to which affirmative action laws regulate institutional and occupational diversity, and c) whether language similarities facilitate the spread. So in the Anglosphere, to my knowledge, all have vastly increased governmental support for higher education since WWII, which means on the other side LESS civil-society control of educational institutions. Since civil society in the Anglosphere generally isn't Woke, this loosening of control allows the educational bureaucracies to impose their values more readily on these institutions.

[@blacklot97]

@@scarletpimpernel230 Your reply is that your theory implies the degree of public support, affirmative action laws, and whether language matters? Apologies if I'm reading this wrong, but is that your answer to one of my questions? I don't really understand the reply. You may want to research post secondary subsidy levels in the "anglosphere" and compare them to american levels of funding. Super interesting. I can tell this is going to be an enlightening exchange of ideas. Who is 'woke' if not the civil society of the 'anglosphere'? Do you think its some sort of outside influence?

[@scarletpimpernel230]

@Blacklot: " Your reply is that your theory implies the degree of public support, affirmative action laws, and whether language matters?" So for example in the U.S., Bruce Bawer's 'Victim's Revolution' shows how huge amounts of money that went to American higher education in the Seventies and Eighties was simply used to created thousands of P.C. departments that transformed academia. Without that public support (indirectly through taxation), the American public itself, since it consistently surveys as not supporting Wokeness, would never have given the funding to these institutions, via regular tuition and philanthropic aid, to create these thousands of departments. (It never would have paid for it and it never would have chosen to attend those courses.) In other words, to create Wokeness, you need to get the money of the taxpayer, and then use it in ways that he wouldn't. That's one essential mechanism of the creation of the ideology. (The other are the morals legislation of Civil Rights laws.) " You may want to research post secondary subsidy levels in the "anglosphere" and compare them to american levels of funding. Super interesting." That would be good (and I want to at some point), but my bet would be in all countries percentagewise much more governmental funding was directed after WWII. We would also have to look at affirmative action laws-I've heard for example that French unis have fewer or none of these. " I can tell this is going to be an enlightening exchange of ideas. Who is 'woke' if not the civil society of the 'anglosphere'? Do you think its some sort of outside influence?" Civil society is, as we know, hugely divided: conservatives and independents vs liberals. But more importantly is the question whether EVEN LIBERALS would pay for Woke courses and fund universities if it was straight-up out of their own pockets. By choice. I suspect even many liberals wouldn't. And how many liberals would fight for curtailing the rights of men in businesses and universities if Titles VII and IX didn't do this already? How many would leave their jobs if men were allowed more jokes and the banter was looser? As it used to be? Not many, I would bet. So very few people would really be willing to sacrifice their money or prospects for Woke values it it weren't supported indirectly by the state.

[@stevenlightfoot6479]

I am an upper middle class white, in Canada, and definitely NOT woke.

[@nunyadamnbizness9600]

It didn't say ALL idiot!

[@giacomobandini969]

And How many of you Friends and peers are woke?

[@dawnemile7499]

Do you openly resist?

[@mark4asp]

How long ago did you graduate?

[@John-Brown]

"White"

[@scarletpimpernel230]

4:40: "I've got a different theory....I've often puzzled over why it is that the Anglosphere seems to be more prone to cancel culture....and my theory is that it's rooted in the Protestant tradition." That makes no sense, Toby, since Protestantism in the Anglosphere, as religion generally, is on THE WANE and has been for the since WWII. Instead, as I discuss in great detail on my channel, what has been INCREASING enormously, since that time is the governmental influence on American higher education, expressed both through vastly increased subsidies and funding, from the GI Bill onwards, to Titles VII and IX of the 1964 and 1991 Civil Rights Acts, which enforce a behavioral conformity both of Woke thought and practice in governmental, business, and educational institutions. In addition, whereas only about 5 percent of persons got a degree in 1940, about 36 percent do today. That simple fact means that the Woke ideology sponsored in the universities, BECAUSE of the increased governmental funding, is now spread to a much larger percentage of the population than previously.

[@jkraich5317]

I believe that he is referring to the idea that Woke culture is filling a "religion" shaped hole. The rise of woke in a country where religion was once so dominate only underscores the influence of a religious history

[@scarletpimpernel230]

@J Kraich: a) But what he's ignoring is the role of the state, throughout history, in privileging certain belief-systems and ideologies over others, typical examples here being the spread of Islam, communistic belief in the Soviet Union after the 1917 Bolshevik takeover, and the spread of Christianity especially after the Codex Theodosianus, which essentially outlawed non-Christian beliefs. b) in addition, there is no reason, precisely because of the above point, to think that human beings need religion, as opposed to other more rational belief-systems. It is precisely history that shows that coercive institutions are needed to make mankind adopt irrational ideologies-on their own, when individuals have to face the natural consequences of believing in the irrational, they tend to be more rational. But when forced by the state, then that is the 'rational' choice. And so we see Rob Henderson's supposedly 'more cowardly' older generations being more compliant-but only because of the very different institutional sanctions they face, compared to their lack earlier.

[@footwinner1]

@@jkraich5317 exactly. In the absence of a religion that outlines moral superiority, purity of values, etc. is the woke framework that can be adopted regardless of religious beliefs or lack thereof.

[@pedrob3953]

He isn't talking about religion itself, but the Protestant religious culture, a high-horse puritanism that doesn't exist in countries with other religious traditions.

[@youareivan]

spain is super woke.

[@goldenvulture6818]

Care to elaborate?

[@riccardodececco4404]

right on the money: a strain of neo-protestantism, a new theology of predestination....