The Cult of Woke
A Discussion on Woke Ideology
TEXT
The idea of being ‘awake’ has a rich history in human thought, from ancient enlightenment notions, to the cyber punk red pill that wakes Neo up from the matrix. Though the specific term ‘woke’ has origins in the context of social and racial justice (in denoting a person who is informed, educated, and conscious of these issues), the term — now all but stripped of its original meaning — has been transformed into a cult-like ideology characterized by its Frankenstein absorption and distortion of numerous theories into a relatively incoherent and disjointed amalgamation, but one that nonetheless shares enough commonality and solidarity to be called an ideology.
Wokeism borrows most heavily from postmodernism, critical theory, and social constructionism, mainly by applying the idealism of postmodernism to the materialism of critical theory. It recasts the class struggle of Marxism along the lines of its chosen critical theory subtypes, specifically in trying to instigate racial and gender revolution where Marxist class revolution has failed. It takes the willingness to engage in violence of post-colonial theory, but takes its historical context and reframes it as an ongoing struggle between oppressor and oppressed. It takes certain branches of feminism which pits the oppressive patriarchy against the oppressed class of women as a current and ongoing struggle; it takes Critical Race Theory with its historical lens of structural racism and adds to it a heaping dose of guilt politics (similar to the strategies employed against the capitalists in Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China). But the structural battles for racial and sexual equality have already been fought and won, no thanks to them, and despite their efforts at stoking the ashes, so where wokeism is most active is in the newer branch of queer theory — by leaving aside any useful contributions it might have and singling out its struggle between the normative oppressor and the queer oppressed. But the community is not that sizable, so in their efforts at oppression politics, they attempt to band together the different oppressed groups under their umbrella and against their common oppressor, hoping to garner enough collective will to reverse the dialectic of oppression (of course with the end goal to achieve an oppression-free world; although, as we learnt from socialist revolutions, even in killing all the oppressors, one realizes that they have become the very oppressors they thought they were eradicating), and gain the power to redefine reality, based on the notion that reality is wholly a social construct of power.
This comes to a head in the current iteration of the trans movement, which the academic Camille Paglia — a self-described lesbian and trans anti-feminist feminist (trans in the original sense) — calls a ‘confused’ movement. In rejecting biological realities, attempting the erasure of woman, both forcing and prohibiting speech (under the term of ‘hate speech’), and its willingness to threaten or enact violence against any dissidents, wokeism is a far cry from the liberal intellectual tree it tries to draw sap from. For true liberal intellectuals, the right of dissent is a right above all. To quote Paglia, the “freedom to love is also the freedom to hate”. Or to quote Chomsky, “If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.”
What makes this theory so insidious (and how it has seeped into politics, culture and society) is that it preys on both the humanity and the hope, along with the fear and the egotism common in man. It appeals to those who empathize for the oppressed and downtrodden, but it provides only a cheap sense of moral superiority. It appeals to those who want to build a better world, by telling them if they only follow and give up their own will to the collective, they will gain the power to reshape reality into a new utopia — the same promise that was giving to the followers of Marxist socialism. It ensnares those who fear being ostracized from the community, or who fear being seen as not enlightened enough, or those who fear the bogeymen that wokeism feeds in order to offer protection to its followers from the feared microaggressions of the patriarchy and white supremacy, for which all they ask for in exchange is to give up ones power and autonomy to their own elite group of enlightened ones, who will speak on their behalf. And it appeals also who those with a savoir complex, by telling them they can become the elite of this new movement, if only they are woke enough.
What makes this theory so despicable — leaving aside for a moment its inability to see the world as anything else but a dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed — is its totalitarian ethic, and its insistence on the erasure of the individual in favor of an extreme communitarian and utilitarian group identity, and its obsession with power. Power and violence are fundamental to this ideology. Instead of recognizing our common humanity and working to break down the wall between the presumed oppressor and oppressed, its goal is to reverse the positions of oppressor and oppressed in a Marxist misunderstanding of the Hegelian dialectic. The basic tenets of this ideology include: group identity and power.
Group Identity
Wokeism rejects objective morality, ontological reality, and the category of Truth as social constructions of power, yet its rejection of universality becomes itself universal. In rejecting grand narratives, wokeism employs group narratives, though this favoring of group narratives becomes itself the grand narrative. Wokeism rejects rational objectivity and epistemic universality (that all beings can apprehend a shared truth) in favor of lived experiences on the basis of group identity. Within its philosophy of group identity, we can draw out the following narratives:
<> That reality is socially constructed (with emphasis on cultural and linguistic construction)
<> That groups, rather than the individual, are the fundamental components of the construction process, thus the will of the group precedes any notion of individual beingness or autonomy
<> That the most fundamental group is not humanity, but a dichotomy of oppressor and oppressed (more recently with an added appendage of ally on the side of the oppressed and those complicit on the side of the oppressor); therefore, morality does not arise out of a benevolence for humanity but is described as the ‘right kinds of feelings for the right kinds of groups’
<> That group identity is based on immutable characteristics — except for those who are sufficiently woke enough to be able to claim membership without any such immutable characteristics, and except for those who, though they share the immutable characteristics, disagree with the group
<> That group identities can be hierarchically structured (even though wokeism rejects hierarchies) using the principle of intersectionality, with some groups being more ‘equal’ than others
Power
That power seems an inescapable feature of our world is hard to deny. But in rejecting everything else, power becomes a totalizing metaphysic for the Cult of Woke. But power is only acknowledged in connection to the oppressor. For the oppressed, and more specifically, for its representatives, though the aim is to attain to power (in order to redefine reality and usher in utopia), power here is cloaked under the guise of protection. The saviors of the oppressed must attain to power, in order to protect the oppressed, even if the only threat is that of becoming offended. The priesthood of Woke, by proclaiming themselves the powerless deconstructionists of power, have, with sleight of hand, placed themselves outside the ‘bounds of power’. From this privileged position, they denounce privilege. Unsparingly critical, yet incapable of self-reflection, they decry power, yet while wielding it. Wokeism makes these following claims:
<> Given that groups cannot think for themselves, an enlightened class of liberators that has true knowledge is needed to speak on behalf of the oppressed, and to carry out the work of reshaping reality
<> Given that reality is linguistically constructed, to control language is to attain to power (this is attempted in one way through the prohibition of words, or through forced speech, or through the modification of language — creating new words or altering meanings of current words). The priesthood of Woke employs numerous methods for maintain linguistic control, including appeals to emotion, ad-hominem attacks, and name-calling. Yet, under their attempts to control language, is the implicit threat of actual violence
<> The priesthood insulates itself from critique through linguistic sophistry — either one must unquestionably submit to their pronouncement and thereby admit their guilt as an oppressor, or critically question and thereby demonstrate their guilt as an oppressor. Even if a member of the very group (by virtue of their immutable characteristics) were to disagree, it is not because of a flaw in the ideology, but simply because they have internalized the oppressor’s view
<> Dissidence is the worst kind of bigotry and must be severely dealt with in any way possible. All must join and accept uncritically else they be on the side of the oppressors; there is no middle ground. Silence is violence. All must be active in their support by engaging in virtue signaling
