A culture that has mastered the basics of survival can easily become its own worst enemy. Amid comparative ease that few human minds in the long history of our species have enjoyed, we too easily forget and even spurn the achievements that have so vastly improved our condition on Earth — including the principles of autonomy, self-governance, and devotion to freedom.

When a culture abandons its foundations and becomes willfully ill-equipped to defend them, its future is cast into doubt. This is where we find ourselves today — in the USA in particular and the Western world more broadly — having become overly self-critical to the the point of being suicidal. We genuflect, apologize, accommodate, and acquiesce meekly, having become too nice for our own good. And to our peril, this abject weakness does not exist in a vacuum.

The “Woke” ideology that plagues us is nothing new. It is merely an old foe under a new name — the latest manifestation of the same social critic culture I witnessed in academia and the art world in the mid-90s and early 2000s. What might then have been dismissable as the esoteric internal dialogue of “ivory tower” radicals has since metastasized to infect nearly every cultural entity we possess — the intentional result of a “long march through the institutions” that Frankfurt School Marxists and their fellow travelers have patiently advanced for decades. Their toxic and destructive agenda now lives on behind the myriad façades of “anti-racism”, “decolonization”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), “social and emotional learning” (SEL), and fraudulent concepts such as “social”, “racial”, “environmental”, and “economic justice.” Their steady, persistent incrementalism has largely succeeded due to in significant part to our own neglect, with the result that our proverbial frog is now close to boiled.

Awareness of this phenomenon is growing, offering the possibility of either a turnaround or a way out. The following resources will have particular value to those seeking to understand what’s happening and how to counteract or escape it. I’ve recommended some particularly good starting points for each, but make sure to also check out these content creators’ other work, as there’s plenty more depth to be plumbed.

A stirring metaphor that’s stuck with me through the years seems apt to pass along to fellow culture warriors:

My spear has a short range. It is dulled from skirmishes and stained with blood. Much of it my own. Every year it knows a few victories and defeats. Every year I pick it up again. My spear is cunning and steadfast. It draws the enemy closer to my way of thinking by its very sight. When thrust into the heart it does not kill. It does not harm. It transforms. Its edge opens the mind. I hand a new spear to the changed. We march together in the sunlight.

D. Mitchell
On the Frankfurt School and the Origins and History of “Woke”-ism
Dissecting Woke-ism’s Machinery
Exposing Institutional Infiltration
Counteracting the Epidemic