The ancient Greeks used the parable of Narcissus to warn against the dangers of self-absorption or obsession with one's public perception. The demi-god wasted to death after being locked in a gaze with himself while looking into a pool of water.
Although ancient, the story provides insight into the underlying foundations of our hyper modern self-obsessed culture. The obsession with the here and now whether demonstrated across TikTok, Twitter or Facebook betrays our collective ignorance of history, vanity for the present and ignorance for the future.
The make belief social media world where digital social justice warriors battle online trolls is inspired by the MMORPG fantasy online communities like World of Warcraft where "good" warriors battle "evil" orcs. Fiction replaces reality as doctored imagery and online escape becomes the primary currency for avoiding real world responsibilities - this new narcissism is society's crack cocaine.
White collar workers and the professional managerial class obsessed with grievance, claim status of victimhood for imaginary identities on their smartphones while factories producing those same devices install suicide nets for low wage workers. Its easier to blame your digital neighbor for perceived slights than to get your hands dirty and fix the plumbing.
How much woke virtue signaling does it take on your smartphone to overcome real supply chains that depend on 'acceptable' worker suicide rates and conflict minerals dug out by children in illegal mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo? The social justice meta narrative conveniently ignores those types of questions.
Virtue and vice are now brands absent any depth or intrinsic meaning and the corporate class has jumped on to the bandwagon in a cynical effort to divide society so as to prevent any meaningful reform on issues such as taxing the rich or poverty.
It became pretty apparent early on in the pandemic that all of the moral self righteousness, identity policing, and otherwise online vapid loud mouths offered absolutely nothing constructive to the very real threats born from an airborne pathogen. These same preachers of modern virtue (no sarcasm detected) arguably worsened the spread of the virus during the first early waves of COVID-19. One only has to jump back to absurd media commentary from February 2020, just before shit hit the fan when socially liberal politicians like Nancy Pelosi or Justin Trudeau opposed travel bans on the basis of ethnic stigma.
Sound and fury signifying nothing.
Classical liberalism wherein ideas are debated on the basis of evidence, curiosity, logic, the scientific method and civility forms one of the cornerstones of Western democracy over the last three centuries. John Locke's treatise provided the intellectual foundation for the enlightenment and with it the subsequent scientific revolution.
The current web that adherents to the diversity, inclusion and equity religion are spinning offers a bleaker, more twisted and ultimately more racist version of Marx's communism.
Race replaces class membership and everything is defined by power relationships. This type of rationale mimics past witch hunts and political violence whether the Khmer Rouge committing genocide against against that country's intellectual class, the Red Guard offering mass denunciations, the Cheka hunting down White Russian dissidents or even suspicious colonists sentencing suspected witches to death in Salem.
Martin Luther King and his dream for a more fair and just society wherein individuals are judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin is jettisoned in favour of a permanent grievance logic that seeks to burn everything down.
The really startling thing of what Andrew Sullivan terms the "Great Awokening" is the extent to which it almost entirely co-opted left wing politics and post-secondary institutions.
Love, friendship, and humour all lose meaning in a world governed by fear and self serving revenge narratives.
This new narcissism is no better reflected than in the rise of individual specific pronouns across social networks, corporate communications and even video gaming. The New York Times (previously the global paper of record) even produced long article on the matter "A Guide to Neopronouns: Are you a person, place or thing? We have good news." The publication advises readers to consider using neopronouns such as Vamp/Vampress or Princ/Princess as well as a multitude of other less decipherable terms to describe individuals so insecure with themselves that they can't use a he/she or even they to describe themselves.
The preponderance of fake pronouns, fake genders and lies concerning evolutionary biology is all indicative of meaninglessness.
And yet when measured against any handful of challenges of our times, identity politics offers nothing in terms of solutions for any serious problems. Take for instance any of these problems:
1. Climate Change
2. Nuclear Weapons and Great Power Politics
3. Financial Markets Regulation
4. Equality of Opportunity and Financial Inequality
5. Any Technical Problem
Identity does not provide a policy or even individual response to any form of complexity outside of irrational mob anger, purity competitions and public denunciations.
This mirrors the threat posed by right wing demagogues to the liberal democratic project in terms of levels of seriousness. And in a strange respect, both the Trump Cult and the Woke Cult function as objective allies in their end goal of disrupting or even overthrowing liberal democracy.
The former Yugoslavia is perhaps the best example of where politics based on identity eventually terminates - Srebrenica.
