By: Mark Glennon*
Is there no depth to which the assault on freedom of thought and speech will not sink? Even a discussion about central principles of The Enlightenment — reason, logic, evidence and tolerance of competing ideas — has been censored by the thought police, in this case at YouTube.
The censored talk is in a podcast hosted by Chicago native Glenn Loury, who became the first black professor of economics at Harvard University at age 33. Loury was joined by John McWhorter, an associate professor at Columbia University, and Mark Goldblatt, author of a new book, I Feel, Therefore I Am: The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism. You can still view it at Substack here.
Most of the podcast is devoted to what would have been regarded, only a decade ago, as too obvious and mundane for discussion. “The Enlightenment is not a threat,” Goldblatt said. “It is the guarantor of their rights. It has a premise of being rational.” Reason, empirical evidence and standard modes of logic have to be our guiding principles. If they aren’t, “then subjectivity rules,” he said, which can be anything.
“Woke subjectivism,” as Goldblatt calls it, is the enemy of that.
He “generously defines” wokism as “a cluster of advocacy positions designed to promote an understanding of and equity for historically marginalized people.” Nothing wrong with that, all the panelists agreed, but it’s the methodology of how it proceeds that Goldblatt criticizes. The woke base their case on sentiment, which is entirely subjective, and “if sentiment is raised as an alternative, then anybody can play.” When reason, logic and evidence aren’t on your side, subjective sentiment is an alternative, so that’s what the woke embrace. “I feel therefore I am.”
That’s all hate speech, as YouTube sees things, so it banned the podcast. Loury subsequently wrote this:
YouTube’s policy on hate speech removal stipulates that they “remove content promoting violence or hatred against individuals or groups” that fall into a long list of categories. The idea that anything in the above video promotes “violence or hatred” against trans people or anybody else is absurd. It was removed merely because it questions some of the premises of progressive discourse on trans issues. That is censorship, plain and simple. It is outrageous. And, ironically, it proves exactly the point that Mark makes when he notes wokeism’s prioritization of subjective feelings over empirical facts.
Regarding Loury’s reference to discussion in the podcast about trans people, the only potentially controversial comment was made by Goldblatt, who says trans men are women. It seemed to me he was merely making a linguistic point. He implied nothing against them or about what rights they should hold. Each panelist repeatedly said that trans people and gay people should be treated with dignity and respect.
The problem isn’t entirely limited to the left, the panel agreed. They cited as an example Donald Trump’s basis for claiming he won the 2020 election despite objective evidence to the contrary — because “he feels in his gut that he won.”
Loury noted the irony of how Google’s censorship proves the very point of his podcast. There’s irony also that the victim is a black, accomplished native of Chicago, which is now fully controlled by the woke. If he grew up in Chicago today he’d never be exposed to the ideas he now embraces.
Loury’s podcast is professorial and academic, but Elon Musk recently put the same problem in layman’s terms: It’s a “woke mind virus.”
Anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech is very dangerous, Musk said, and those are two of the aspects of the woke mind virus, he said, adding that you “can’t question things, even the questioning is bad.”
It’s more than dangerous. Unless stopped, woke mind virus will return us to the pre-Enlightenment, a new dark age.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true.” The Hunting of the Snark (An Agony, in Eight Fits) Lewis Carroll (1874)
Just look at the ‘top of the page’ on WP any given day the last few weeks – one article after another discussing the fallout from Leftist Democrats and their extremism. The articles of wreckage come with increasing regularity now, as Chicago and IL are in a full blown transition into marxism.
Leftist Democrats have lots of weaknesses, so many that we should be going on offense! If you think Brandon Johnson is on solid ground, and that his base is a resourceful bunch of dignified folks with credibility and good intentions, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Yeah, wreckage is the right word for WP headlines. Packing your bags and leaving is the worst game plan. I’m getting the feeling that Wirepoints wants to document the destruction of Illinois instead of putting forth common sense solutions.
Let us know when the mob is gone. Till then…
I like your energy but you remind me of General Pyotr Wrangel, the commander of the White Army during the Russian Revolution, still fighting on until the very end. The Bolsheviks had taken over Tsarist Russia by 1919. General Wrangel took his rag tag army of monarch loyalists to fight back against the Bolshevik Army. He and his army kept asking for international help and aid against the communists, but the rest of the world had just finished finished fighting WWI, and were in no position or shape to assist the White Army against the commies. Having received no support… Read more »
You’re a complete joke. You know nothing about world history or current affairs. I’ve spent years studying communism. Communists constructs are weak, incapable of self-sufficiency and unable to compete against capitalism. If you dig deep enough, you’ll always find a banker or mega corporation behind a communist movement. My whole reason for posting here is to expose this and counteract RINO schemes. The Bolshevik revolution would have failed without Red Cross intervention (Red Cross mission to Russia was primarily Bankers and capitalists) and Wall Street $$. Stalin would have fallen without Lend Lease in WWII. There’s a lot more we… Read more »
You’re not wrong. In fact, you’re making my case and you don’t even know it. We in IL have been abandoned by the national Republican Party. No one is coming to reinforce us, just as no one came to reinforce General Wrangel and the White Army. We’ve been abandoned decades ago by the national Republican party in DC. The RNC has abandoned all the blue states and is trying to keep their dominance in Red States. IL, just like the commies, were backed by powerful rich corporate interests, and there was no will to save the formerly ruling party, which… Read more »
I wish we could all share in your optimism for Illinois. The media is fully in support of communist Brandon Johnson and supported Lightfoot, Foxx, Evans, Dart, Pritzker, without really ever questioning their decision making over the last 4 years. They operated with impunity and the only voices shouting were CWB and Wirepoints. That’s it. An individual citizen or family who must stay for financial or family reasons is understandable. I decided that I was tired of being robbed blind and fleeced on everything. Illinois and Chicago is a massive financial mess. Wirepoints puts forth common sense solutions on a… Read more »
Republicans are abandoning ship. I talked to someone a few weeks ago about their 30th high school reunion and a majority of the attendees had moved out of state. The natives are fleeing and the new residents don’t share your values. We are becoming Venezuela. We may become one of the first failed states to actually collapse, in my lifetime, like a South Africa of the midwest or something. And if that happens, I’d fully expect large areas of the state to secede to surrounding red states, without legislature approval, or congressional approval, and they’ll just integrate themselves into MO,… Read more »
Completely agree, that’s the real goal nationally. Illinois, NY, California are well on their way. Disagree that there is no recourse. Although some don’t have the appetite, I most certainly do. Moving out of the US is definitely one of my plans on the table.
What is your plan Dave?
I actually listened to that on YouTube before it was removed. It was very good!
“Wokism” at it’s core is really immaturity…
Using childlike reasoning such as “I want this to be true” so therefore it is…
And when challenged you respond with extreme agitation, attempting to shout down (shut down) anyone that dares to question you or those aligned with you…
Just like a petulant child…
Isn’t that the description of the current political era more generally? It’s seems especially true for the extremists on both sides to me at least and only a little less so for those who lean a bit more toward the center. If there was ever an era of it being otherwise that’s many decades ago.
No, not really. One side believes in facts, rationality and logic, and tries to argue it to the other side. For example, there are XX and XY chromosomes which makes men and women. Or no one alive today owed a slave. Or it’s not fair that an unqualified person should take the job away from a person who is qualified because of an immutable characteristic like the color of one’s skin. The other side is the ‘extremist’ side and calls you a transphobe if you believe in two genders, a racist if you’re against reparations and a fascist if you… Read more »
Well said.
You write like an extremist to me, so I think my description above might well apply to you. If so, I presume you’re holding a minority point of view. Maybe that’s not the case here, of course. You call people names and pick the most extreme cases for your remarks. Others of an opposite point of view will do likewise as a retort. Neither of you will persuade the other. Just keep screaming.
None of this is true. You are engaging in the law of projection – you accuse others of doing exactly what you are doing. You just called me a name caller, you just called me extreme (without giving any examples), and accuse me of screaming. This is after I just gave three rational and logical arguments to reparations, equity and gender theory above.
I wasn’t referrring to the post you made just prior to mine. I was referring to the “vibe” you have here. I think you are ever looking for a fight with someone/anyone politically, and I’ll bet that is a constant source of complaints/embarrassment/resentment/etc. with your spouse and relatives. You “take no prisoners” when anyone gives you an alternate view of life and the poltical world. I think you need some counselling on how to reason with people and being open to such alternate ways of thinking. Your world seems way too much “my way or the highway.” You’ve said as… Read more »
LOL how do you know so much about me? At this moment, I’m going through my third divorce. It was my fault. I met some much younger conservative online influencer, and things got a little intense, and the third wife didn’t like that. So now my mistress became my girlfriend, and everyone seems OK with this. I have one son, he’s as left-wing as they come, refuses to see the world from my right-wing perspective. The rest of my liberal family hates me, my refusal to get covid shots prior to a family party meant that I’ve been disowned by… Read more »
Well, your personal relationships are trying to tell you something. Be wise, listen up and ponder its meaning to your future possibilities for happiness. We all are what we are internally and can’t likely fake it all that long otherwise. If you really, honestly want my advice I’d say listen more to others and quit trying so hard to change the whole world to your concept of how it should all play out more brilliantly. Its okay to talk with anyone about many topics, but the minute you start hard-selling yourself that’s the same minute the listener is going to… Read more »
Ouch!… I hope none of this is true. Not sure whether to laugh or cry.
you can laugh, none, or maybe all of it, or maybe some of it, is true.
Maybe an ice cold Grain Belt or Old Style. Ice cold in the bottle. Only way to enjoy a good macro brew.
I used to drink Grain Belt beer. It was good stuff….when you’re 21 years old!
Hilarious.
Lol
I agree on your point about the extremists…
I do not deny that they exist on the right, however the number of extremists on the left far outnumber those on the right…
And those on the left have a lot of power & influence…
I can’t speak to the numbers on either side, so I’ll agree. But, what I dislike intensely is the child-like written versions of screaming and name calling. It surely a disagreeable way to communicate. What’s even worse is that it’s bound to be counter-productive to the reader or listener, generally causing the same sort of retort and further solidifying a prior mindset rather than enticing a new one. Moderate tones are more likely to be productive. But, yes, we all know that “screaming” at someone who has an opposing viewpoint can easily make you feel SO superior and so much… Read more »
James you often have insightful comments. You’re here on a site that leans right so not many are going to agree with you. What I take issue with is supposed institutions of learning shouting down and keeping conservatives from being able to exercise their right of free speech. We see that all to often being done by the left. I don’t frequent left leaning sites very often but I’m going to guess the right does not do it anywhere near as much as the left. That was started by the left as a reaction to Trump. Until my speech is… Read more »
The left has defined conservative positions as hate speech, racism, transphobia, and worse. They’ve decided that conservative speech, which half the country believes in, is no longer welcome in polite society. You’re right, there is no discourse with these people. They only respond to power, raw power, as our side has begun to steamroll them politically and judicially.
Some here apparently think I’m a rabid leftist. Nope. In fact, I don’t troll a single website appealing to that far-left brand of politics. I consider myself a moderate leaning maybe 15% toward the left. I have “sympathy for my fellow man,” and to that extent I’m infavor of politics favor people of all stripes. Yet, I’m a fiscal conservative, so on that level I don’t like free-spender politics. That used to be the province of Democrats, but Reagan ramped spending up greatly and every Republican since has added to that set of woes. Way back in that earlier era… Read more »
I am also moderate. Unfortunately, I find myself being backed into a corner as I watch science, education and medicine evolve into left wing institutions. That has happened and it has happened very quickly.
I very much agree with this. Every single day I can point to another example of the left squashing conservative speech on college campuses. I can also point to libraries in and out of K-12 that will not source books that run afoul of what the left is feeding our kids. I am so tired of hearing about book “banning” as I know the same has been done, often quietly, by “progressives.” Unfortunately, we hear none of it on our nightly news and it’s mostly ignored in mainstream papers.
BTW, I do not agree with the restrictions on books in K-12 except in cases of pornography. I really don’t think pornography should be allowed in school. I understand kids can view it many ways, but public schools shouldn’t be one of them.
There are no such thing as moderates. There are normal Republicans with time-honored values; and the crazy Democrats. If you call yourself a centrist, moderate Democrat, you’re really just a centrist Republican, because Republicans have the same values as Democrats had in …. oh about 2015.
It’s always important to keep in mind that commenters are more extreme than readers and the public. It’s well known that commenters tend to be particularly opinionated and, on this site, less than one percent of readers typically comment. As a mild mannered moderate, James, you are fairly unusual as a commenter. We get emails and comments from readers that have an entirely different tone than commenters. There’s more common ground on quite a few issues than you would know from commenters or social media.
I don’t consider myself extreme. I don’t let my enemies define what is extreme about my positions. I consider myself mainstream but am willing to say the things few want to put into writing. Really, most of what I argue has been pretty mainstream for most of my life. Most of my opinions were common in 2015, before President Trump broke the Democrat Party. There’s videos of D. Chuck Schumer arguing for border control and restricted immigration; Biden and Obama coming out again against gay marriage; Hillary Clinton arguing to lock up super-predators; two genders have always been accepted; everyone… Read more »
I appreciate the reminder given as your first sentence since it suggests many—and maybe most—of your readers are more moderate than so many strident regular commenters here. I’m all in favor of looking for common interests as that pertains to all of your readers rather than the more opinionated few. Like so many here, though, I think that government has become too big, too intrusive and too expensive. The Founding Fathers envisioned a far more limited kind of government and one where personal choices would be the rule except where it infringed on the rights and welfare of others. But,… Read more »
James, there are bad actors here. Wirepoints staff disagrees with me and thinks they’re only operating at the federal level, but posts here lead me to think otherwise. This is the new normal; bad actors stuffing chats with inciteful rhetoric and insults to influence and persuade.
I don’t know about all that as my personal feelings, but there are clues of all sorts that this society is seriously broken. I fear that for our collective future. The days of “Mayberry” probably never were as portrayed on TV, but I grew up in a small town where everyone I knew seemed to get along well enough from outward appearances at least. These days everyone seems to think a shotgun or pistol will help solve all their problems such as the 2 or 3 events of this past week in the national news where innocent people were shot… Read more »
Dave, we think there are only bad actors the federal level? We’ve written 2,300 articles here, probably 90% of which are about bad actors at our state and local level.
The bad actors are paid Dem operatives who post racist stuff, and the Glowies (feds) who suggest violence.
The court system and the constitution is what should resolve the issues people have. When it doesn’t, then people experience more problems and don’t do a good job getting anything resolved.
Progressives that criticize the setup for justice, some of whom refer to each other as comrades, are seriously out of line.
The courts are being packed with leftists who have no desire to follow previous laws, because previous laws are racists structures designed to oppress and marginalize non-white people. They are making up the laws as they go along.
After Elon builds up his bank account again, maybe he can buy YouTube next.
He’s still deleting accounts from Twitter and refusing to reinstate old ones. It’s better than the old Twitter, but not by much. I could argue it’s even more dangerous now because he’s not getting the blowback that Jack got. He should release all the twitter files instead of letting a select few go through them.
It’s 1000x better than the old twitter. All of my old dissident right favorites are back…It’s only the left that doesn’t like the free speech aspect of it, and refused to pay the $8. But they’re all addicted to it as much as every one else…
I watched about 8 minutes of the 10-minute clip on the Substack link. My conclusion: elusive garbage. Wokeism is manufactured! The woke goofballs are not on equal footing! Anyone that’s spent any time evaluating this dilemma will come to the conclusion that the woke movement wouldn’t survive on its own. Part of the scam associated with the whole circus, and the divide and conquer results it leads to, is presenting materials that claim both sides are on equal footing and that this is some sort of ideological battle. A system analysis approach reveals this type of commentary adds to the… Read more »
Since nobody wants to go back and forth on this.. Any book titled “The Triumph of Woke Subjectivism” is a dead loser and should be thrown in the trash! LOL Why am I not surprised Wirepoints would feature it?
Mark and Ted, you guys have been posting way too much defeatist take my ball and leave stuff lately. I’ve got U-Hauls all over the page here, There’s a giant Illinois map with leave arrows all over it. Where’s the fighting spirit?
And you guys wonder why New Trier Republicans aren’t interested in getting involved?
No, we don’t wonder. We know them and we know why.
Insofar as I understand your complaints about what we do here (and I am not sure I do because they are often incoherent to me) you apparently think we should never mention opposing views even in the course of criticizing them, as that book did (which you seemingly do not understand), and I think that’s nutty. Let me suggest that you state clearly in a comment or an email what you think we do wrong and what you propose instead.
I’m guessing the objective of Wirepoints is to put forth persuasive arguments that counterbalance legacy media talking points. If you want to persuade, you need to project winning and leadership. It’s that simple. Posting U-hauls, goodbyes, and reviewing books stating that wokeism has “triumphed” are making things worse. Your article starts with some sort of claim that we’re losing further ground to wokeism. Evidence? I see things turning around. The next paragraph concedes that Glenn got censored by YouTube (nobody is surprised or cares anymore, and most have moved to other platforms), and then proceeds to name-drop a book proclaiming… Read more »
I’m all ears about different opinions I get about how to stop today’s left, which I see as a mortal threat to Western civilization, and what to say about Illinois, where we’ve stated our goals often. Sorry, but so far you make no sense to me on either one.