I kind think we've arrived in this moment to be honest. I think it's fairly mainstream (in discursive environments) that the most recent moral panic has been hijacked by mostly WASPish elites to capture positions of power in across communities seen to have some cultural influence (hence, esp., tech).
What I imagine is also now clear is: how little these people really understand about the politics they profess (eg., in this case, saying emjois are some sort of communicative violence); how little they care about the communities they've tried to hijack; and how mistaken they are about the nature of the power that exists within them.
A bit like a dog chasing a car that finally bites it, I doubt any of them are very happy. Consider how many WASPish elite journalist types have flooded into various media journalism and criticism, and how repulsed their own audiences are at them, and likewise. It's pretty obvious that many critics in these areas despise their audiences, and the enviroments they are in.
One imagines a similar wave of realisation is hitting these groups who've tried to take over technical organisations. In the end, these are incredibly meritocratic communities whose advancement is just "someone does something". You can't really argue with volunteers of this sort, you might as well argue with the sea. If you defame them, humiliate them, marginalise them, the people left won't be the ones who do any work. You cannot browbeat people into volunteering, only out of it.
This is the asymmetry at work that these obnoxious power-chasing elites are starting to realise: their obnoxiousness and abusiveness can only alienate, it cannot include. And so, no one watches their movies, tv programs, plays their games, reads their articles, or.. volunteers for their open source projects.
But we have to be very clear here: this has nothing to do with injustice. The people who are active fighting to reduce sexism, working in domestic violence shelters; fighting racism, working with police to reduce community violence; and so on -- these people are not out there on twitter posting slurs against perceived enemies.
This group had found out that you could use this issues to defame people online, worm your way into positions of power, and somehow gain some status and credibility. Now they are discovering how self-destructive and pointless such a strategy has been .
It's not exclusively WASPs, but these do form the basic core of this elite capture project. Ivy leaguers don't wear tweed and calfskins anymore, they're in doc martens protesting at someone's oppressive use of an emoji.
What exactly do you think WASP is short for? By almost every metric, the period of political and cultural ascendancy for American WASPs ended at least a generation ago. Consider the backgrounds of our last 3 presidents, as well as our next one (regardless of who it is).
(What’s so bewildering about this is that your framing suggests that it wasn’t the WASPs who were in tweed before, but some other demographic from whom the WASPs wrested the elite status. But the exact opposite is - rightfully - the case.)
I'm not sure why you think I'm talking about presidents.
Go and have a look at who the sorts of people I'm talking about are, you'll find a lot of rich white people dressing-down. Who do you think their parents are?
> your framing suggests that it wasn’t the WASPs who
I don't see where I said this.
WASPs have fallen from the presidency to bitching in newspapers, sure; and in random social organisations. That's my point. Their children are now bleeding-heart vipers going around, as their parents did, inserting themselves in positions of power as best they are able: "Representing" the interests of other groups who've they've almost no experience or understanding of.
If you havent noticed yet, have a look. When you see this kind of intra-elite warefare taking place, go look at the pictures of who's involved. Have a look at their bios. It's often a lot of upper-middle class white children playing games.
Go walk into one of the top universities in the world.
> I'm not sure why you think I'm talking about presidents.
Because you’re also talking about universities and social organizations as if Python broadly resembles either :-)
The point was that, in relative terms, WASPs today have less political and cultural capital than they’ve ever had at any previous point before in the US’s history. Which is a good thing.
(This is why I wanted you to spell out what you think WASP stands for. It isn’t “rich and annoying white person with social capital,” despite the fact that many WASPs are that.)
What I imagine is also now clear is: how little these people really understand about the politics they profess (eg., in this case, saying emjois are some sort of communicative violence); how little they care about the communities they've tried to hijack; and how mistaken they are about the nature of the power that exists within them.
A bit like a dog chasing a car that finally bites it, I doubt any of them are very happy. Consider how many WASPish elite journalist types have flooded into various media journalism and criticism, and how repulsed their own audiences are at them, and likewise. It's pretty obvious that many critics in these areas despise their audiences, and the enviroments they are in.
One imagines a similar wave of realisation is hitting these groups who've tried to take over technical organisations. In the end, these are incredibly meritocratic communities whose advancement is just "someone does something". You can't really argue with volunteers of this sort, you might as well argue with the sea. If you defame them, humiliate them, marginalise them, the people left won't be the ones who do any work. You cannot browbeat people into volunteering, only out of it.
This is the asymmetry at work that these obnoxious power-chasing elites are starting to realise: their obnoxiousness and abusiveness can only alienate, it cannot include. And so, no one watches their movies, tv programs, plays their games, reads their articles, or.. volunteers for their open source projects.
But we have to be very clear here: this has nothing to do with injustice. The people who are active fighting to reduce sexism, working in domestic violence shelters; fighting racism, working with police to reduce community violence; and so on -- these people are not out there on twitter posting slurs against perceived enemies.
This group had found out that you could use this issues to defame people online, worm your way into positions of power, and somehow gain some status and credibility. Now they are discovering how self-destructive and pointless such a strategy has been .