Interesting as always! It occurs to be listening to this discussion, and maintaining the frame of “religion” on “wokeness”: that John and Glenn are trying to be reformers of the faith. Glenn, who disagrees with much of the “teachings,” is looking to change “dogma” and John, who mostly agrees with the “teachings” in general, is trying to reduce the fundamentalist fervor with which people are practicing the “faith.”
Canadian here. The reason why Jian Ghomeshi has become toxic is because it's widely understood he is pretty certainly guilty of abusing women. But the case against him was screwed from the very beginning, because they'd all happened 10-12 years prior, and while it was called 'sexual assault' what Ontario regards as 'sexual assault' and what Americans would varies greatly. No actual sexual contact occurred. His hands literally went no lower than his neck when he throttled, slapped, and smacked them. It was their word against his, and to make matters far, far, worse, the women who accused him were exposed as guilty of colluding against him in email during the trial, and when Ghomeshi's lawyer accessed their emails from the time period in which he was accused of harming them, it became clear that it hadn't been the horrible trauma they'd claimed - they were all a bunch of groupies enamoured of him, all clearly hoping to become his girlfriend. It was a huge illustration of how women *SOMETIMES* exaggerate how traumatic something allegedly is.
But of course there was no real evidence, and Ghomeshi got himself a great lawyer (she's nicknamed "The Barracuda" and she's actually a very good lawyer) and so he got acquitted, even though the judge himself said he thought Ghomeshi was guilty, but acknowledged there was without question lots of reasonable doubt, mostly thrown by the accusers themselves.
So Canadian anger against Ghomeshi is because, like another infamous celebrity on the other side of the border, he got away with it. I wouldn't be interested in reading anything he has to say about his 'toxic' image either, unless he were to get honest about what everyone knows he did and why he did it. There's zero self-awareness or comprehension from this guy.
So why did he quit if he thought he was doing the right thing? Maybe if he stood his ground they would back off. By capitulating he is himself conforming. Me personally I was fired several times for not conforming to corporate dress codes and pissing management off telling them the truth they didn't want to hear. I never quit I made them fire me.
So the liberal media? Sounds like a right wing conspiracy until it doesn’t. Really wished we’d stop comparing “this” to Nazi Germany, that is “woke” in of itself. It’s an emotional, spoiled, childish, cynical response to difficulty, which is exactly the context needed to explain woke. A generation who doesn’t know what it has, and is crying because it doesn’t have what you got. That’s woke.
Let me be critical here: When I read 'culture of conformity' I was expecting a deeper dive into American sameness. One of the paradoxes of Wokeism is that it champions the opposite of what the religion is itself.
I call it 'auto-antonymic branding.' An example of that would be Wokeism itself, which implies enlightenment, but is really the opposite, a return to the darkness of PC and Marxism-infused groupthink that brooks no dissent. What is meant by "inclusivity" is limited to certain kinds of people and ideas within a narrow parameter that should also never be challenged.
The problems with what I call 'American sameness,' are many. This belief that democracy means one size fits all, that there should be one standardized test for all forms of intelligence, and so forth, is omnipresent. It's perhaps most glaring in the instinct Americans have for what they call "sameness of experience" for national brands; i.e., you will have the same experience in a MacDonald's in New York City as you would in rural Nebraska as you would in Los Angeles.
The default toward sameness and the fear-based abhorrence for true individuality in America is across the board, so pervasive that the vast majority of Americans have no idea how deeply they're buried in it, how conformist they truly are. Look at how you dress — American men have been dressing the same way for over a hundred years — what you eat, how you speak, the prisms by which you process information. Even people who call themselves "freethinkers" in America are saddled with many guardrails of assumptions. Conservatives are the most conformist, of course — the words are synonymous.
The only reason American sameness so glaring to me is I was raised in Europe. I speak five language fluently, and so forth, which isn't bragging for an Ameropean — it's common for Europeans to speak that many. I'm using it to make a point about my difference of experience and why American sameness is so obvious and often disturbing to me.
Even more influential to my outlook is the fact I began my career as the only American of any race in Bollywood, which would normally be a breaking of a glass ceiling, but I'm not the right race or sex for that. India in the early 90s was the most different society on Earth — it still is. It's Western reality pushed through the looking-glass, turned upside down, inside out.
In my considerable experience, Europeans and Middle Easterners — Israelis especially — love that shock to their established reality. Very few Americans like having the augmented reality of Americanness so brutally confronted. For instance, the caste system, including arranged marriages, is a highly successful eugenics program that maintains a balance in a culture that delights in chaos and exoticism.
The realities of what the Indian system truly is causes Americans to short-circuit. A common question is, "But... how come they're all so happy?" According to intractable American sameness, they shouldn't be, but by and large they are.
Americans of all races loathe the truly exotic. In my experience, it's one of the most conformist societies on Earth, in its own way just as conformist as a totalitarian state or an Arab country. Yet Americans labor under the delusion that they're individuals who embrace diversity. Quite the opposite.
That's the true 'culture of conformity' that needs to be addressed, in my view. It sure ain't new, either. Really tired, actually.
t think the stagnation does lead to a boring culture , but i think it also leads to a dynamic counter culture that will ferment and create new ideas that go against the grain .
Interesting as always! It occurs to be listening to this discussion, and maintaining the frame of “religion” on “wokeness”: that John and Glenn are trying to be reformers of the faith. Glenn, who disagrees with much of the “teachings,” is looking to change “dogma” and John, who mostly agrees with the “teachings” in general, is trying to reduce the fundamentalist fervor with which people are practicing the “faith.”
Canadian here. The reason why Jian Ghomeshi has become toxic is because it's widely understood he is pretty certainly guilty of abusing women. But the case against him was screwed from the very beginning, because they'd all happened 10-12 years prior, and while it was called 'sexual assault' what Ontario regards as 'sexual assault' and what Americans would varies greatly. No actual sexual contact occurred. His hands literally went no lower than his neck when he throttled, slapped, and smacked them. It was their word against his, and to make matters far, far, worse, the women who accused him were exposed as guilty of colluding against him in email during the trial, and when Ghomeshi's lawyer accessed their emails from the time period in which he was accused of harming them, it became clear that it hadn't been the horrible trauma they'd claimed - they were all a bunch of groupies enamoured of him, all clearly hoping to become his girlfriend. It was a huge illustration of how women *SOMETIMES* exaggerate how traumatic something allegedly is.
But of course there was no real evidence, and Ghomeshi got himself a great lawyer (she's nicknamed "The Barracuda" and she's actually a very good lawyer) and so he got acquitted, even though the judge himself said he thought Ghomeshi was guilty, but acknowledged there was without question lots of reasonable doubt, mostly thrown by the accusers themselves.
So Canadian anger against Ghomeshi is because, like another infamous celebrity on the other side of the border, he got away with it. I wouldn't be interested in reading anything he has to say about his 'toxic' image either, unless he were to get honest about what everyone knows he did and why he did it. There's zero self-awareness or comprehension from this guy.
Pros and cons of conformity.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/conformity
So why did he quit if he thought he was doing the right thing? Maybe if he stood his ground they would back off. By capitulating he is himself conforming. Me personally I was fired several times for not conforming to corporate dress codes and pissing management off telling them the truth they didn't want to hear. I never quit I made them fire me.
So the liberal media? Sounds like a right wing conspiracy until it doesn’t. Really wished we’d stop comparing “this” to Nazi Germany, that is “woke” in of itself. It’s an emotional, spoiled, childish, cynical response to difficulty, which is exactly the context needed to explain woke. A generation who doesn’t know what it has, and is crying because it doesn’t have what you got. That’s woke.
Let me be critical here: When I read 'culture of conformity' I was expecting a deeper dive into American sameness. One of the paradoxes of Wokeism is that it champions the opposite of what the religion is itself.
I call it 'auto-antonymic branding.' An example of that would be Wokeism itself, which implies enlightenment, but is really the opposite, a return to the darkness of PC and Marxism-infused groupthink that brooks no dissent. What is meant by "inclusivity" is limited to certain kinds of people and ideas within a narrow parameter that should also never be challenged.
The problems with what I call 'American sameness,' are many. This belief that democracy means one size fits all, that there should be one standardized test for all forms of intelligence, and so forth, is omnipresent. It's perhaps most glaring in the instinct Americans have for what they call "sameness of experience" for national brands; i.e., you will have the same experience in a MacDonald's in New York City as you would in rural Nebraska as you would in Los Angeles.
The default toward sameness and the fear-based abhorrence for true individuality in America is across the board, so pervasive that the vast majority of Americans have no idea how deeply they're buried in it, how conformist they truly are. Look at how you dress — American men have been dressing the same way for over a hundred years — what you eat, how you speak, the prisms by which you process information. Even people who call themselves "freethinkers" in America are saddled with many guardrails of assumptions. Conservatives are the most conformist, of course — the words are synonymous.
The only reason American sameness so glaring to me is I was raised in Europe. I speak five language fluently, and so forth, which isn't bragging for an Ameropean — it's common for Europeans to speak that many. I'm using it to make a point about my difference of experience and why American sameness is so obvious and often disturbing to me.
Even more influential to my outlook is the fact I began my career as the only American of any race in Bollywood, which would normally be a breaking of a glass ceiling, but I'm not the right race or sex for that. India in the early 90s was the most different society on Earth — it still is. It's Western reality pushed through the looking-glass, turned upside down, inside out.
In my considerable experience, Europeans and Middle Easterners — Israelis especially — love that shock to their established reality. Very few Americans like having the augmented reality of Americanness so brutally confronted. For instance, the caste system, including arranged marriages, is a highly successful eugenics program that maintains a balance in a culture that delights in chaos and exoticism.
The realities of what the Indian system truly is causes Americans to short-circuit. A common question is, "But... how come they're all so happy?" According to intractable American sameness, they shouldn't be, but by and large they are.
Americans of all races loathe the truly exotic. In my experience, it's one of the most conformist societies on Earth, in its own way just as conformist as a totalitarian state or an Arab country. Yet Americans labor under the delusion that they're individuals who embrace diversity. Quite the opposite.
That's the true 'culture of conformity' that needs to be addressed, in my view. It sure ain't new, either. Really tired, actually.
t think the stagnation does lead to a boring culture , but i think it also leads to a dynamic counter culture that will ferment and create new ideas that go against the grain .