In the early 1930s there was a Jewish journalist living in Germany. The journalist loved cats so he had a subscription to a cat magazine. At first the magazine had articles about grooming your cat, toys for your cat, exactly what you would expect in a magazine dedicated to cats/2
But as the 30s went on the journalist started noticing articles appearing in the magazine about the German cat. How the nature of German cats were superior. How essential the loyalty of German cats were. Slowly some variant of this message made it into every article. /3
In the total state every aspect of life must relate back to the power of the regime. No academic discipline, piece of art, or hobby can simply exist for its own sake. It only exists to point back to the power of the regime. /4
In more formally totalitarian regimes we understand how this works. In the 3rd reich or USSR there was an official official organ of the state in charge of coordinating propaganda. Forcing every piece of media to point back to the state. /5
That doesn’t exist in our society so we need to explain why we can still observe the same phenomenon.
Our regime is governed by a decentralized network of consensus manufacturing institutions sometimes called the cathedral /6
Our ruling class do not have their orders handed down by one official propaganda office but they do all attend one essential institution during their formative years that shapes their morality, worldview, and personal networks
The university /7
The people who operate our key institutions and shape our culture all share the same moral system. They read the same things, attend the same parties, watch the same programs, and need to signal the same types of virtues to succeed in personal and private life /8
This is how a science publication can dedicate itself to denouncing free speech. The elites who run it share the same interests values and culture as other cultural elites and will become preoccupied with the same causes placing them above the stated purpose of the institution/9
When you notice that every company is woke, every show or video game is about social justice, every school is more interested teaching gender ideology than math or reading you’re noticing the German cat, the decentralized narrative of the cathedral /10
"It is a fallacy to say..." their notion of freedom of speech is almost 100% the same as the norms of speech in Russia and China, yet the latter have the moral high ground of not preening about their love of freedom.
The problem with this theory is that nobody really believes in “wokeness”. They even make fun of the fact that no one really believes it (see Ricky Gervais or Bill Mahr). I think there used to be a consensus but now that is obviously broken for everyone to see.
So if people do not believe in it why are they not allowed to speak against it or offer an alternative? This is why people believe in conspiracy theories- because it is so detached from consensus belief it most point to some kind of blackmail or “other” in charge.