We know how insanity—from the Salem witch trials to Jacobinism to McCarthyism—can
spread, despite alienating most of the population, through fear and the threat of personal ruin or worse. These are the dark sides of worldwide popular fads, the mass obsessions so suited to past affluent Western societies. But does wokeism serve another purpose as well? Specifically, does it either hide preexisting incompetence or fuel it?