There aren't many pieces I read that light up a lightbulb in my head. But you've done that about something that had been bothering me about corporate responses to social justice activism that I'd not been able to articulate. Thank you!
I read this article back in June, and it completely blew my mind. Your take is spot-on, and explains so much of what is going on in our culture right now. Everywhere I look, I see woke capitalism. As a civil servant friend pointed out, "it is cheap".
This is excellent. Thank you. I've been looking at and researching this nexus of issues with a view to putting thoughts on paper. Glad I've read this first.
Thank you for this piece, found via Twitter, which crystallized a lot of my thinking. I have subscribed.
Our family has recently joined the charity Anti Slavery International, precisely because it focuses on economic radicalism and long-term practical solutions rather than social radicalism and virtue signalling.
A good example from the campaigning of Anti Slavery International, very much along the lines of your article and its final paragraph: the Premier League having Black Lives Matter on player's shirts and players and managers taking the knee before a match (social radicalism to virtue signal without cost), while doing and saying nothing about the modern day slavery of black workers building the stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar (which would involve difficult economic questions and be messy for individuals within the Premier League and their jobs/status).
A question to Helen: do you celebrate examples where companies do make a real difference? Or do you still think it's cynical branding? I am thinking of Asos, a corporate sponsor of the charity I mention above, who do actually visit factories in their supply chain and switch away if they don't follow guidelines. I also know personally an ex-employee of Mark's and Spencer whose job it was to visit suppliers of their clothing in Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam - unannounced - and check for working conditions etc. Examples such as these are self-serving behaviour by the companies for sure - they have an ethical brand - but they do make a real practical difference as well as being social radicalism/virtue signalling .
This article is fantastic. You succinctly express all the things that usually get me denounced as a "crypto-fascist" "class reductionist" "nazbol" "tankie" etc etc whenever I try to argue them to a well meaning but misguided social radical. We need to get this message out there.
That said, I suspect a lot of the most vocal supporters of this social radicalism already know everything you have argued. The only reason they deny it is because they are, in reality, economic conservatives, and they don't want to be revealed. They are simply not interested in helping poor people, regardless of their colour or gender, because that would be counter to their interests- if anything, wealth appears to be the remaining acceptable form of discrimination.
This is no longer a movement of the left. If it ever was to begin with, it was co-opted long ago.
I wonder if Helen Lewis or anyone here in the comments has read a book called 'The Rebel Sell'. It explains in great detail how anything 'countercultural' ends up driving capitalism itself.
It's interesting that some of these points are similar to those which Jordan Peterson has been raising for a number of years. I don't follow your writing closely enough to know if this is a sudden pivot or if you've gradually softened your stance on these radical agendas.
Lots of interesting thoughts here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of places you might want to revise. First, you create a tension between, on the one hand, saying that women are held back by the perception that they'll "sod off at 30 and have babies" but then say that a feminist firm needs to have creche facilities in order to ensure the advancement of women? There's already too much conflation of women's issues with support for working mothers. Not all women have children; that isn't what defines women. Don't fall deeper into that trap. Second, is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish "women’s single-sex spaces". I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them. So there can still be women's safe spaces, but they won't be defined on any sort of biological sex or gender assigned at birth basis.
'Many groups which face discrimination do so on grounds on both identity and class: women at work, for example, are held back by the perception that they aren’t suited for, say, maths jobs - as well as the belief that they’ll sod off at 30 and have babies. An employer might not see the worth of a black job applicant because he or she doesn’t speak the way they expect - or that applicant might not be able to take the job because their immigrant parents can’t subsidise them through several years of rubbish wages.'
Are you suggesting that some women DON'T in fact 'sod off at 30 and have babies'? That women are, when seen in terms of statistical averages, just as interested in, and as good at, Maths as men? That employers should employ someone who doesn't speak the way they'd like them to speak with clients and customers? That companies should subsidize immigrant workers, but not indigenous workers, 'through several years of rubbish wages'?
Why? On what overarching morality are these assumptions based? If companies were charities or communities then I might agree with you but surely the raison d'etre of a company is to make money.
When you apply for a job you weigh up all the pros and cons of each prospective employer: does it have a creche? Will it subsidize me through the hard years? etc. Then you choose the firm most in line with what you want. Bearing in mind that nothing in this world is perfect, what exactly is wrong with any of this? And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?
There aren't many pieces I read that light up a lightbulb in my head. But you've done that about something that had been bothering me about corporate responses to social justice activism that I'd not been able to articulate. Thank you!
I read this article back in June, and it completely blew my mind. Your take is spot-on, and explains so much of what is going on in our culture right now. Everywhere I look, I see woke capitalism. As a civil servant friend pointed out, "it is cheap".
This is excellent. Thank you. I've been looking at and researching this nexus of issues with a view to putting thoughts on paper. Glad I've read this first.
Thank you for this piece, found via Twitter, which crystallized a lot of my thinking. I have subscribed.
Our family has recently joined the charity Anti Slavery International, precisely because it focuses on economic radicalism and long-term practical solutions rather than social radicalism and virtue signalling.
A good example from the campaigning of Anti Slavery International, very much along the lines of your article and its final paragraph: the Premier League having Black Lives Matter on player's shirts and players and managers taking the knee before a match (social radicalism to virtue signal without cost), while doing and saying nothing about the modern day slavery of black workers building the stadiums for the next World Cup in Qatar (which would involve difficult economic questions and be messy for individuals within the Premier League and their jobs/status).
A question to Helen: do you celebrate examples where companies do make a real difference? Or do you still think it's cynical branding? I am thinking of Asos, a corporate sponsor of the charity I mention above, who do actually visit factories in their supply chain and switch away if they don't follow guidelines. I also know personally an ex-employee of Mark's and Spencer whose job it was to visit suppliers of their clothing in Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam - unannounced - and check for working conditions etc. Examples such as these are self-serving behaviour by the companies for sure - they have an ethical brand - but they do make a real practical difference as well as being social radicalism/virtue signalling .
This article is fantastic. You succinctly express all the things that usually get me denounced as a "crypto-fascist" "class reductionist" "nazbol" "tankie" etc etc whenever I try to argue them to a well meaning but misguided social radical. We need to get this message out there.
That said, I suspect a lot of the most vocal supporters of this social radicalism already know everything you have argued. The only reason they deny it is because they are, in reality, economic conservatives, and they don't want to be revealed. They are simply not interested in helping poor people, regardless of their colour or gender, because that would be counter to their interests- if anything, wealth appears to be the remaining acceptable form of discrimination.
This is no longer a movement of the left. If it ever was to begin with, it was co-opted long ago.
This is excellent Helen. It exactly crystalises my thoughts about diversity initiatives. Thank you.
This is one of the best things I've read in a long time!
So good! I]”synthetic activism” brilliant.
Helen, this is, as ever, an excellent read. Thank you.
I wonder if Helen Lewis or anyone here in the comments has read a book called 'The Rebel Sell'. It explains in great detail how anything 'countercultural' ends up driving capitalism itself.
Wonderful piece, this. Should be on The Atlantic.
Good well argued points
I was wondering why all these companies were jumping on the BLM bandwagon.
Just like to say - this is a great analysis.
It's interesting that some of these points are similar to those which Jordan Peterson has been raising for a number of years. I don't follow your writing closely enough to know if this is a sudden pivot or if you've gradually softened your stance on these radical agendas.
Lots of interesting thoughts here, but I wanted to highlight a couple of places you might want to revise. First, you create a tension between, on the one hand, saying that women are held back by the perception that they'll "sod off at 30 and have babies" but then say that a feminist firm needs to have creche facilities in order to ensure the advancement of women? There's already too much conflation of women's issues with support for working mothers. Not all women have children; that isn't what defines women. Don't fall deeper into that trap. Second, is your assertion that Stonewall want to abolish "women’s single-sex spaces". I read the page you link to, it isn't about abolishing these spaces, it's about allowing trans women to access them. So there can still be women's safe spaces, but they won't be defined on any sort of biological sex or gender assigned at birth basis.
'Many groups which face discrimination do so on grounds on both identity and class: women at work, for example, are held back by the perception that they aren’t suited for, say, maths jobs - as well as the belief that they’ll sod off at 30 and have babies. An employer might not see the worth of a black job applicant because he or she doesn’t speak the way they expect - or that applicant might not be able to take the job because their immigrant parents can’t subsidise them through several years of rubbish wages.'
Are you suggesting that some women DON'T in fact 'sod off at 30 and have babies'? That women are, when seen in terms of statistical averages, just as interested in, and as good at, Maths as men? That employers should employ someone who doesn't speak the way they'd like them to speak with clients and customers? That companies should subsidize immigrant workers, but not indigenous workers, 'through several years of rubbish wages'?
Why? On what overarching morality are these assumptions based? If companies were charities or communities then I might agree with you but surely the raison d'etre of a company is to make money.
When you apply for a job you weigh up all the pros and cons of each prospective employer: does it have a creche? Will it subsidize me through the hard years? etc. Then you choose the firm most in line with what you want. Bearing in mind that nothing in this world is perfect, what exactly is wrong with any of this? And how would your creche-offering, immigrant-subsidizing, non-Received-Pronunciation-employing company fare in competition with one that offered none of those things and thus had fewer overheads?