I’m inclined to agree that the cultural revolution is probably mostly confined to government, the media, and parts of academia like the humanities, social sciences and education. Or “Communications Studies” - whatever that is - at WLU if the Lindsay Shepherd case is any indication. My two twenty-something kids did engineering and commerce. In the former, university was only about mastering really difficult technical material. There was a bit of SJW insanity in the commerce program, but not a lot. They both work in the private sector which consists of, you know, actually working and not denouncing thoughtcrime or banning books. I suspect their experience isn’t that unusual.
The issue is our society is very comfortable right now and I wonder how a lot of these people that are in such safe bubbles will respond to any big changes in society.
IMO, the emergence of an 'educated progressivism' from the late 60s onwards has created a self-perpetuating safe space that has emerged out of a 'progressive consensus' (aka the creation of a homogenized progressive line though across schools and political viewpoints.
These people are hothouse flowers, fed a stream of progfacts during university, and who then remain in associated urban fields (i.e. the media, HR, public office, education, NGOs), which push out studies, journals, articles, and new educators that feed back into academia. As a result, they never meaningfully interact with the 'other side', which appears as a constructed enemy and as the 'establishment'- without any moderation, the consensus only ends up getting louder and more extreme.
This is a feedback loop that's been around for around 30-40 years, that came into appearance in the late 80s, and has only emerged into the large public realm in the late 2000s-early 2010s as social media appeared and these political viewpoints started to be enforced on others (i.e. STEM). The problem is that emerging out of the greenhouse, these people are encountering popular cultural resistance for possibly the first time in many of their lives, resulting in the aggressive cultural warfare we're seeing in recent years. There's also the relatively recent consideration of corporations taking positions and giving legitimacy to either sides, but whether that results from the ongoing spread of the progressive consensus, or pure opportunism remains to be seen.
It's very interesting though, and it's left many classical liberals stranded as the left transforms into an unrecognizable form.
This is one recent example:
A UC Berkeley graduate student and instructor took to Twitter to shame "rural Americans" and those who aren't "pro-city."
Jackson Kernion, who has reportedly taught at least 11 philosophy courses at the California university, made the comments last Wednesday.
"I unironically embrace the bashing of rural Americans," Kernion wrote in a now-deleted tweet. "They, as a group, are bad people who have made bad life decisions...and we should shame people who aren't pro-city."
Kernion started going after rural citizens, saying they should have higher health care, pay more in taxes and be forced to live an "uncomfortable" life for rejecting "efficient" city life.
A UC Berkeley instructor went on a Twitter rant about rural America. Jackson Kernion shared his critical thoughts of those who choose to live outside the nation’s big cities, saying they are 'bad people who have made bad life decisions.'
news.yahoo.com