The extent to which beliefs become fashionable in certain crowds - the unruliness and fashionable silliness of the Mandarin Class

Arnold Kling notes an observation from Father Benedict Kiely.  

Victor Davis Hanson has written about the causes of this leftist prejudice; victim culture, ‘anti-colonialism,’ anti-capitalism, and the profound hatred of Western culture. This all finds a perfect outlet in the hatred of Israel, reviving the ancient hatred of the Jew. 

We can add to this factor something as ephemeral and useless, but nevertheless important in our vapid culture: fashion. It is quite simple fashionable to be anti-Israel, and even antisemitic. For a Western culture that abhors history, that does not even teach history, fashion becomes the leitmotif of what is ‘really real’ and what is important. TikTok wisdom is more valuable than a doctorate. This is one of the reasons, I believe, that we have seen the explosion of antisemitism on college campuses, disguised as anti-Zionism. Never underestimate the power of higher education to produce imbecility. 

Kling then adds his own insight:

I know that we do not necessarily need one more screed against the progressive left. But I think that Fr. Kiely makes a point that I think is worthy of emphasis—the extent to which beliefs become fashionable in certain crowds. I have said before that I think affluent teenagers in the United States find it fashionable to claim LGBTQ+ sexual identities. And it has become fashionable to be anti-capitalist and anti-Israel.

The good news is that these beliefs are quite shallow (the Israel-haters do not know which river and which sea their chants refer to). The bad news is that I do not know enough about the dynamics of these fashions to have a good idea for how to get them to change.

I bet A conversation between Kiely, Kling and Dr. Nicholas Christakis would be not only interesting but might provide the foundation for a de-toxification plan to excise the authoritarian and antisemitic derivatives of Marxism which infect the Mandarin class.  The AGW cultists, the DEI fanatics, the Critical Race Theory racists, the Social Justice stalinists, the ESG anti-democrats, the Multicultural death cult, etc.  All sent back to the academic shallows and miseries where they belong, bereft as they are of any moral foundation or engagement with reality.

Christakis is an expecially important nexus.  He is not only the author of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives -- How Your Friends' Friends' Friends Affect Everything You Feel, Think, but he was a professor at Yale University before he and his wife (also a professor) were cancelled by a baying mob of cognitive wannabe's making do with ignorant passion as a substitute for actual thinking and knowing.  

If you want to harness knowledge about fads to effect social change, I suspect you can't do much better than to include Christakis.  He knows by learning and by experience.  Add in some modern equivalent of Eric Hoffer (True Believer) and Walter Lippman (Public Opinion and Liberty and the News) and you have a Fantasy Intellectual Team who might actually create some interesting ideas on how to hew a path back towards the success and prosperity of Age of Enlightenment Classical Liberalism from which Wokeness has drawn us.