{"id":127814,"date":"2025-03-12T05:57:09","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T05:57:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/a-social-critic-struggling-to-break-free\/"},"modified":"2025-03-12T05:57:09","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T05:57:09","slug":"a-social-critic-struggling-to-break-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=127814","title":{"rendered":"A social critic &#8220;struggling to break free&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1140\" height=\"420\" src=\"https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-1140x420.jpg\" class=\"singular-image entry-image\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-678x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-176444 lazyload\" style=\"width:942px;height:auto\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"678\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-678x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-176444 lazyload\" style=\"width:942px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-678x1024.jpg 678w, https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-199x300.jpg 199w, https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-768x1159.jpg 768w, https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL-1017x1536.jpg 1017w, https:\/\/currentpub.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/61vHnFnCyjL.jpg 1348w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 678px) 100vw, 678px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Version 1.0.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p>Over at <em>Commonweal<\/em>, George Scialabba <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonwealmagazine.org\/woke-symbolic-capital-scialabba-al-Gharbi\">reviews<\/a> Musa al-Gharbi\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/hardcover\/9780691232607\/we-have-never-been-woke?srsltid=AfmBOooVXtXwgEJrBtjriLurcP7gzOW_RNbKY3bLimu-rYyJorx6TN2m\">We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite<\/a><\/em>. It\u2019s a largely negative review. But what struck me the most was Scialabba\u2019s final paragraphs:<\/p>\n<p><em>I don\u2019t mean to dismiss\u00a0<\/em>We Have Never Been Woke.<em> Al-Gharbi is obviously intelligent and energetic; he has gathered a lot of interesting data, organized it well, and written it up clearly and forcefully, except for occasional sentences like this one: \u201cMeanwhile, heightened demographic inclusion has been accompanied by a growing homogenization of identity, and increased parochialism against divergent perspectives (including and especially with respect to minority group members who reject institutionally dominant narratives on identity issues).\u201d Such sentences are apparently considered evidence of intellectual heft by tenure committees, which are a necessary rite of passage for young symbolic capitalists like al-Gharbi.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>For what it\u2019s worth, I hope he gets tenure, and sooner rather than later. Because the sooner he gets tenure, the sooner he can drop the jargon and instead employ vivid examples, colorful anecdotes, and direct, pungent language, all of which are frowned on by the gatekeepers of every social science. I strongly suspect that there is a social critic in al-Gharbi struggling to break free of the sociologist. If so, I wish him Godspeed.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Read the entire review <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonwealmagazine.org\/woke-symbolic-capital-scialabba-al-Gharbi\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Version 1.0.0 Over at Commonweal, George Scialabba reviews Musa al-Gharbi\u2019s We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. It\u2019s a largely negative review. But what struck me the most was Scialabba\u2019s final paragraphs: I don\u2019t mean to dismiss\u00a0We Have Never Been Woke. Al-Gharbi is obviously intelligent and energetic; he has gathered [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":127815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[6792,20750,807,55856,55857,55858,10974,55859,11430,55860,55861],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-127814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-break","tag-critic","tag-free","tag-george-scialabba","tag-musa-al-gharbi","tag-scholarly-writing","tag-social","tag-social-criticism","tag-struggling","tag-symbolic-capitalism","tag-wokeness"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A social critic &quot;struggling to break free&quot; - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=127814\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A social critic &quot;struggling to break free&quot; - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Version 1.0.0 Over at Commonweal, George Scialabba reviews Musa al-Gharbi\u2019s We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. 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