Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
One of the country's most influential public intellectuals asks: What if the roots of the culture war lie not in the culture itself, but laws and regulations enacted decades ago that few are aware of today?
In a nation nearly evenly split between conservatives and liberals, the left dominates nearly all major institutions, including universities, the government, and corporate America. Hanania argues that this is as much a legal requirement as it is an issue of one side triumphing in the marketplace of ideas. Culture has its own independent force, but the state has since the 1960s been putting its thumb on the scale.
The product of more than a decade of research and thought about American politics and culture, How the Left Won the Culture War explains where wokeness came from and ultimately what to do about it. Ideas like the belief that standardized tests are racist if groups don't perform equally on them are not simply intellectual fads, but mandatory dogmas that institutions are required to believe in. Even the ways in which we classify ourselves has been shaped by an activist state--this is why Americans talk about laws and initiatives to address discrimination against "Hispanics" and "Asian American-Pacific Islanders" rather than Middle Easterners, white ethnics, or people from specific Latin American countries.
For those angry about wokeness and what it has done to American institutions, the book offers concrete suggestions regarding policies that can move us back to being a country that emphasizes merit, individual liberty, and color-blind governance.
Synopsis
Richard Hanania has emerged as one of the most talked-about writers in the nation, and in this book, he puts forward a stunning new theory about the culture war that could turn our debates upside down.
Richard Hanania has come out of nowhere to become one of the best-known writers in the nation in the last few years. In this book, he directs his attention to the culture war that has driven society apart and presents a stunning new theory about what is going on.
In a nation nearly-evenly split between conservatives and liberals, the left dominates nearly all major institutions, including universities, the government, and corporate America. Hanania argues that this is as much a legal requirement as it is an issue of one side triumphing in the marketplace of ideas. Culture has its own independent force, but the state has, since the 1960s, been putting its thumb on the scale.
This book answers many of the puzzling questions about modern society, such as:
- Why does more and more of life seem like a competition to see who is the most oppressed?
- Who is really behind the sudden proliferation of woke ideas?
- How did ideas that seem so intellectually bankrupt achieve hegemony over elite culture?
- Which laws and regulations have helped the left rise to power everywhere?
- How did workplaces come to be the main enforcers of political ideology?
- When and how did Pakistanis, Samoans, and Koreans all become the same "race" (AAPI)?
- Why did America become so obsessed with inequalities based on race but not religion?
For those angry about wokeness and what it has done to American institutions, this book offers concrete suggestions regarding policies that can move us back to being a country that emphasizes merit, individual liberty, and color-blind governance.