Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam
|
Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam — Vivek Ramaswamy
This is a courageous book. I dare say Vivek Ramaswamy has lost some friends in writing it, and while it does makes some good points, it is not clear how interested many older folk will be in lessons from the charmed life of a 36-year-old venture capitalists, let alone ones crafted as intemperately as this one.
Ramaswamy’s target is spot on: — not Critical Theory itself, but its brazen hijack by the professional-managerial class, comprised almost exclusively of over-trained[1] middle-class, middle-aged white professionals, at the expense of not just shareholders, but common sense and, frequently, those who genuinely are at the margins and on the wrong end of intersectional discrimination.
There are more careful, painstaking critiques of Critical Theory (Helen Pluckrose’s Cynical Theories), and more elegantly argued impassioned ones (Douglas Murray’s The Madness of Crowds): this one has too much of the theoretical certainty that all successful young men have, and not enough analytical rigour or real-world application. I don’t think this will persuade anyone not already convinced about that.
As he goes on, Ramaswamy’s political leanings become more overt — he’s a conservative — making his objections seem rather more ideological than strictly practical and, in our polarised times, all that much more easy to write off. A book which takes the political narrative as read, but highlights remaining practical objections — that illustrates how the programme fails even on its own terms — will always be more damning than an ideological one.
See also
- ↑ “Educated” seems to be over-stating it.