Tyler Austin Harper

I am not convinced we've exited Woke 1.0.

I mean, there are still a variety of issues that you basically cannot touch with a 10-foot pole.

I mean, to me, I'm not so sold on the idea that there's been some death knell of wokeness, at least within these liberal circles.

You know, I think one of the frustrations regular people have with what gets called wokeness, I'm going to use a piece of academic jargon, so I apologize.

But what is, you know, what academics would call like the hermeneutics of suspicion, right?

So this like approach to textual objects or cultural objects or whatever, where you're like skeptical of them, you think they have deep, secret, maybe nefarious meaning.

Right.

And I think one of the things that people find really annoying is largely innocuous and maybe, yes, tone deaf or poorly judged statements, but are basically close read by pundits and activists, et cetera, to be like, oh, no, this was actually, you know, secret Nazi eugenic stuff.

Right.

And I think one of the reasons, you know, the Sidney Sweeney thing seemed to actually help the company in question is just because I think people are tired of that kind of approach to politics where we are close reading everyone's statements, every single message that comes before us and trying to figure out like or, you know, insist that there's some dog whistle hidden there.

Right.

I think especially at a moment when like really noxious elements of the far right and sort of the neo-Nazi right are ascending where, you know, American culture is suffused with like more actual racism than I think I've encountered at any time since I've been alive.

You know, I don't know.

I just don't think there's a lot of patience for it.

Yeah.

And I also just think have reacted pretty negatively against the, you know, the sort of censoriousness or perceived censoriousness of the left that like everyone's speech is constantly scrutinized for accidental faux pas.

And I do worry that there's a real sort of like a,

You know, boy who cried wolf thing that's been going on for a couple of years now.

You know, progressives have called everything under the sun racist for the better part of a decade, if not longer.

Right.