Rene Girard read Dostoevsky in 1961 then predicted the rise of western Wokeism. He wrote a whole book about it: Deceit, Desire, and the Novel. A little later he predicted the Based revolution.
It happened just like that but it might have happened otherwise. Girard might have read Gogol. There is really no accounting a Frenchman’s taste in Russians.
Cheap Imitations
Wokeism is a strong desire to humiliate your neighbors that acts in the guise of a desire to remedy an injustice, the remedy being contempt for whatever blameless person they blame. Woke tears signal that the time to hate your neighbor has arrived. Wokeism is a cheap imitation of what came before.
Based is a cheap imitation of Woke. The only thing the Woke love more than their own tears are yours. The Based only love Woke tears. They ‘give them something to cry about,’ in my dad’s words. Based is a cheap imitation of Woke.
Girard predicted it.
The Woke Hero, Tentetnikov
We meet Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov in the first chapter of the first part of Gogol’s Dead Souls. Chichikov is half-Woke. The novel’s real star is Tentetnikov, whom Gogol introduces in the first chapter of the second part*. We know right away Tentetnikov is woke.
To a landowner of the Tremalakhansk District, Andrey Ivanovich, Tentetnikov, a fortunate man of thirty three, and still unmarried at that. The general opinion of him was unfavorable. He was not a bad person; he was simply a stargazer.
[While he was a student] he would say to himself: ‘After all, this is not yet life; this is only a preparation for life; real life comes in the civil service.
[His friends] proved to be what is called embittered people. They were the kind of restless, strange characters who cannot countenance with indifference not only injustices, but anything that even has the appearance of unjustice in their eyes. Demanding indulgence toward themselves and at the same time filled with intolerance towards others.
(*Note: All 19th century novels had 2 parts according to the law of conservation of parts and the commutative property. Tolkien popularized 3 part novels in the mid 20th. Modern novels presumably have 10 or 12 parts. Because progress. And exponential growth.)
When Tententnikov finds out his civil service supervisor expects him to show up on time, he runs home to daddy’s estate and moves into mommy’s basement. His serfs greet their long absent landlord with joy. Tentetnikov heart and eyes overflow when he sees how healthy and wealthy are his muzhiks. He kicks the farm manager to the curb, resolves to improve their lot, and grabs the reins. He reduces his formerly happy peasants to bickering and beggaring.
Tears flow like rain over his estate. Tentetnikov, mission accomplished, rests from his labors and spends his days in idleness. Wide Awoke.
Girard predicted it.
Tentetnikov Dissed
Tentetnikov’s neighbor is a retired general, a kindly old windbag who received Tentetnikov ‘rather kindly and cordially, but they were unable to hit it off. Their conversations would end in an argument and left an unpleasant feeling on both sides.’
Tentetnikov falls for Ulinka, the general’s daughter. He wants to marry her. Or at least move her into the basement. Disaster happens when it turns out the general, who likes to be called ‘sir’, calls Tentetnikov ‘young man’. Our mortally offended hero stomps home and bravely resolves to punish the general by pouting. He cries about the insult to Chichikov who wonders, ‘what’s so terrible about that?’
‘What? You want me to continue to visit him after the way he’s acted?’
‘But what sort of action is that? It’s not an action at all!’
‘What do you mean not an action?’ asked Tentetnikov in astonishment!
Bombs and drone break children’s bones but words are really hurtful.
Girard predicted it.
True Love
Chichikov springs into action. Off to see the general! Ulinka, our hero’s love interest, happens to be walking through the room while her father the general tells an amusing anecdote .
‘Oh, Papa, I don’t understand how you can laugh! Such dishonest actions depress me, and that’s all there is to it. When I see some deception being perpetrated in full view of everyone and those responsible not being punished by the contempt of all, I just can’t control myself. At such times I become spiteful, even nasty: I think and think …’ And she nearly burst into tears.
Who can fail to be moved by such a display of pureheartedness? Not our dear Chichikov, the first convert to Wokeism in Gogolian history.
You would be right to suppose that Chichikov’s bravery ought to be shined with praise and smothered under heaps of gold. At taxpayer expense.
Does the state reward Chichikov as it ought? No! Some Prince jails him over a trivial bit of corruption and forgery and a few hundred million embezzled kopecks. The Prince is Based.
Dead Souls ends mid-sentence. The Prince is silenced. Cancelled. Gogol is Woke.
Girard predicted it.