We're all Becoming Daleks

I should probably start to watch Dr. Who.

Specifically, the episodes featuring the Daleks.

Because we’re becoming Daleks. Every last one of us.

Study the metaphor. According to Wikipedia, the Daleks were created for the Dr. Who television program as “violent, merciless and pitiless cyborg aliens who demand total conformity to their will, bent on the conquest of the universe and the exterminations of what they see as inferior races.”

I’m going to expand that metaphor just only slightly, adopting the accepted metaphor used by British society in general:  “English-speakers sometimes use the term metaphorically to describe people, usually authority figures, who act like robots unable to break from their programming.”

It’s necessary to include this expanded metaphor, lest those who are “woke” attempt to say they aren’t among the Dalek-like.

Now shift here:

In democracy, it is difficult to win fellow citizens over to your own side, or to build public support to remedy injustices that remain all too real, when you fundamentally misunderstand how they see the world.

That comes from Yascha Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard, writing for The Atlantic.

He writes about the disconnect between the “woke” and the “resentful.” You’ll recognize them:

They’re the ones you typically see shouting at each other loudly in any public or social media space, both assured that they are right and those who don’t believe exactly like them are troglodytes not worthy of licking the scum off their boots. They’re human Daleks.

Mounk writes further than though both camps believe they speak for the majority, they do, in fact, speak only for a minority on either end of the political spectrum. He looked at a study that considered support for political correctness. The study found support for PC culture – which the survey left undefined – was much more narrow than most people believe.

Mounk writes:

For the millions upon millions of Americans of all ages and all races who do not follow politics with rapt attention, and who are much more worried about paying their rent than about debating the prom dress worn by a teenager in Utah, contemporary callout culture merely looks like an excuse to mock the values or ignorance of others.

The gap between the progressive perception and the reality of public views on this issue could do damage to the institutions that the woke elite collectively run. A publication whose editors think they represent the views of a majority of Americans when they actually speak to a small minority of the country may eventually see its influence wane and its readership decline. And a political candidate who believes she is speaking for half of the population when she is actually voicing the opinions of one-fifth is likely to lose the next election.

It’s the classic Pauline Kael, even if you stick with the original quote, not the paraphrase.

It also shows up in things like this.

Because clearly the liberals on the Supreme Court should absolutely refuse admission to the newest justice based on the woke’s opinion, which everyone shares because that appointment is still “convulsing” the nation.

Or is it?

Maybe it’s time for all of us to get out of our own special little worlds, shed the Dalek suits, and bask in the sun of actually listening to each other.