Last week, Republican Glenn Youngkin won a surprise victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race, edging out the Democrat Terry McAuliffe by two points. A key issue dividing the two candidates was education.
McAuliffe had promised to “diversify” the teaching profession, noting that “50% of the students … are students of colour and yet 80% of the teachers are white”. Youngkin, by contrast, had vowed to ban Critical Race Theory. Under his administration, the Republican said, children would not be taught “to view everything through a lens of race”.
Youngkin’s victory has sparked renewed debate over the term ‘woke’. And passions are running high. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the feisty Congresswoman from New York, said it’s “a term pundits are now using as a derogatory euphemism for civil rights & justice.”
Likewise, The Atlantic writer Adam Serwer claimed that the term “expresses sentiments the people using it would be uncomfortable articulating directly” (by which he presumably meant bigotry).
And the Slate writer Joel Anderson went so far as to call it a “racial slur”. He then followed this up with the rather ominous statement, “It doesn’t mean I’m gonna do anything to you, or that anyone else will. But it doesn’t mean I won’t either.” That escalated quickly…
Should the word ‘woke’ be retired? I would argue: no. Although the term can be used derisively, this is true of many political terms that are not insults (e.g., “you’re just a bunch of Tories!”). What’s more, ‘woke’ isn’t used exclusively by people on the right; until quite recently, in fact, many leftists openly identified as woke.
They key issue is this: over the last 10 years, a new strand of leftism has emerged, which has been incredibly influential, and precisely because it’s been so influential, we need a simple way of referring to it.
Existing terms like ‘left-wing’, ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ won’t do. And that’s because this new strand of leftism is, in some respects, directly opposed to traditional leftism (as frustrated leftists keep pointing out). For example, traditional leftism says, “judge people based on character, not skin colour”. This new strand of leftism says the reverse.
‘Woke’ seems like a perfectly good label. So why all the hostility from left-wing activists? One possibility is that ‘woke’ no longer has a clear meaning. But that’s just not true. As I myself have noted, the term refers to:
a specific ideology which sees identity groups like sex and race as the primary units of society; which attributes to some groups the status of victims and to others the status of oppressors; and which posits that various ‘structural’ and ‘systemic’ forces stymie members of the former groups while conferring ‘privilege’ on members of the latter.
And if you consider my definition too vague, try defining the term ‘liberalism’, or ‘conservatism’ for that matter.
Various alternatives to ‘woke’ had been put forward: left-wing identity politics; left-wing identarian; regressive left; postmodern neo-Marxist; cultural Marxist; cultural socialist; left modernist; social justice warrior; political correctness. But none of them has quite the same resonance as ‘woke’.
The best alternative is probably ‘left-wing identity politics’. However, it’s a mouthful, and it has no straightforward adjectival form. One solution might be to use ‘left-wing identity politics’ as the noun, and ‘woke’ as the adjective. (After all, ‘wokeness’, ‘wokeism’ and ‘wokery’ sound a bit odd.)
One suspects the real reason that activists like AOC want to do away with ‘woke’ is that it’s much harder to fight something if you don’t have a name for it. They want us to believe that woke politics is just traditional leftism: you know, helping poor people and that sort of thing. But that’s not what it is at all.
The woke recognise the power of language better than anyone, which is why you might have seen medical journals referring to “bodies with vaginas”, rather than “women”. Note: this is a clear attempt to change reality through language. And pretending that ‘woke’ doesn’t have a clear meaning stems from the same impulse.
In a recent article, the non-woke leftist commentator Freddie deBoer wrote, “please just fucking tell me what term I am allowed to use for the sweeping social and political changes you demand”. Notwithstanding the profanity, deBoer was sincerely asking for a better term than ‘woke’, and said he’d “happily use one if offered”.
If the woke do want to come up with a better term, here are the rules. It can’t be ‘left-wing’, ‘progressive’ or ‘liberal’ (those are already taken). And it can’t be too cumbersome (‘person who believes in social justice’ isn’t going to fly). So why not just ‘woke’?
Stop Press: Watch a Free Speech Union discussion about wokeness with Professor Frank Furedi.
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
Not exactly woke, more a bit dozy.
The woke don’t get to choose the term by which we tease and make fun of them.
Been thinking about this and it’s the absolutely insanity of the woke that has caused the adoption of the term. Because somehow fascist-communist seems illogical but, that is in fact what they are.
It’s my understanding that ‘woke’ was first used by an inner clique of self identifying progressive lefties of some particular persuasion to denote that they were exclusively “Awake” to the needs of whichever oppressed group of the marginalised required their attention. That is “woke” identified their in-ground.
Of course “woke” rippled outwards among an ever widening cohort (dread misuse) of the type until it escaped into the public realm before coming back to bite them on the arse.
Oops, damned spellchecker
‘. . identified their in-crowd’
And please may it carry on biting
It’s not thatt long since I first heard it, and I’d rather they left it around long enough so that I can accustom myself to using it properly, which is, obviously, to bait them. I’ve yet to manage to be included in a conversation where I could use ‘person of colour, so I’m behind schedule with a lot of this stuff. (Note to self: must try harder.)
No but they hijack labels from opposition. ‘Woke’ was a label to identify oneself as being awake to the criminal global cartel ruling our countries. Typical of communists, they stole the identity and turned it upside-down to be used against their opponents. It annoys me every time I see scum like Prince Harry being described as woke.
Just another example of the woke seeking to manipulate and control our language.
They don’t like it because it’s now become a derogatory term.
Almost the opposite of what Black Americans did with the N word; transforming it from one of, increasingly forbidden, abuse to that of self-celebration that only they could use of themselves.
We use ‘woke’ precisely because the people who are the problem hate it.
They live on controlling language, so we use an ironic term they can’t ‘cancel’ to describe them.
They deny it exists, but as the saying goes if you can’t smell the smell it’s likely you’re the one emitting it.
My language is how I choose to describe you. If you don’t like that that is your problem, because my view of the world is just as valid as yours. It is that recognition of the validity of different world views where true equality lies.
Anything else is just a pale imitation.
Exactly just like people with the mental illness sex organ dysphoria who think surgery can change their sex.
They want you to be forced to keep up their pretence that they’ve actually changed anything.
The woke would also have difficulty in accusing the rest of us of using the word to bully them as a racial, sexual, social or disability minority.
A reminder, it was that who talked about having their sensibilities awoken. So, to use the old image, you loaded the weapon and aimed it at yourselves and said, “I’m good with this.”
You know something is making headway in swaying public opinion when those to applied to whine. It’s why I’ve never been much bothered by gammon or such things. Some words are now inherently toxic (think of the worst words used of people based on ethnicity or colour), but political terms? No, sorry. They are there and will be used to communicate what you are trying to hide.
The term Gammon is, of course, sexist since it only covers the male of the species entirely ‘othering’ Mrs Gammon and their youngest Gammonetta who is nearly twelve.
Shameful treatment of an unprotected group. Better harrowing than farrowing, I suppose.
I like James Lindsay’s “Identity Marxism” as a descriptive, rather than polemic, term. Seems to cover the both the beast and its provenance.
Marxism is a bit old hat these days as well as having been proved a demonstrable failure everywhere it has been tried.
It should follow the same path as Maoism.
Why even contemplate changing what they’re termd? They wouldn’t! They call people who want to downsize the extortion funded sector fascists, so return the “favour”.
Woke should be an insult. They’re race-judgemental marxists, they’re lucky we don’t call them the more obvious name from German 1930s history.
What isn’t wrong with “Woke”?
I suppose the term’s initial success was that it signified feeling OK about lack of education or grammar, both harbingers of white privilege.
Edit – Just to clarify (hopefully) –
What isn’t wrong with being “Woke” – as opposed to being wrong with the term “Woke”.
If that makes sense…
This video nails the ‘Woke’ propaganda:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzpx9VX9hoI
Exceptionally funny
, real laugh out loud 
,
.
watched in full, thank you
How about we create a chapter of
Toxic Men Anonymous?
Ladies, Wokes and They People welcome to comment on and asses our progress moving forward.
As my name suggests, I’ve no empathy for leftists, but I’d like to throw a bit of a curveball into the debate.
More UK universities ban criticism of Israel – report
Free speech goes both ways
I’m all in favour of free speech in all directions provided it is within the law.
I am not in favour of the government of the day threatening institutions with withdrawal of funding unless it follows its own particular political agenda (which is what Biden is doing wholesale in America re vaccines) as described towards the end of that RT article. They should use the law as it is or change it in Parliament.
40 years ago one of my fellow students was somewhat conflicted in that she was in one of the lefty cliques and so obviously anti-Israel but her guilty little secret was that in an earlier life she had spent time on a Kibutz (which spellchecker is loath to recognise) where she had a whale of a time.
Obs she would only say this in private ‘”don’t tell anybody but . . .”
Who dictates the law? Free speech is exactly that, you can’t physically hurt someone with a word! You can incite a crime, but there are separate laws for that!
No one should be beyond criticism if there’s something to criticize.
I’m sorry what?
You spend considerable time here criticizing medical tyranny. Yet you think nothing of Israel’s apartheid regime & the world’s largest open air prison?
I’ve no issues with Jews or even Zionism, I do take issue with people setting up house in someone else’s home. Israel is an international criminal guilty of numerous human rights violations, throughout its history, as the saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right.
Being anti Israel is a perfectly legitimate point of view provided that hostility is expressed lawfully and not, as you rightly say, in a way to incite crime, or indeed in ways that are criminal of themselves.
If the government of the day objects to the way the law currently stands it should put its case before the public in Parliament, not use underhand attacks on funding in much the same way that bozo uses not lawful ways to impose his lockdown measures, none of which have yet to be tested in Court.
I do not spend much time ‘criticising medical tyranny’, medics are the piggies in the middle when it comes to vaccination., it is the government forcing their hand that deserve criticism
Nowhere have I suggested that all those opposed to Israel are lefties merely that lefties almost hold that viewpoint.
Politics can make for strange bedfellows.
Medical not medic tyranny
Criticism of Israel’s conduct shouldn’t be political, it’s a war crime.
Why nit just ‘cretinous’?
Too complicated for me, all I know is that trans-woke is real woke.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the feisty Congresswoman from New York, said it’s “a term pundits are now using as a derogatory euphemism for civil rights & justice.””
Woke is a combination of puritanism and Maoism, of course the Maoist AOC approves of it.
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the feisty Congresswoman from New York, said it’s “a term pundits are now using as a derogatory euphemism for civil rights & justice.””
More accurately, “civil rights & justice” is (in practice) mostly a euphemism for radical leftist ideology.
“over the last 10 years, a new strand of leftism has emerged, which has been incredibly influential, and precisely because it’s been so influential, we need a simple way of referring to it.”
No, this is not something new, just a new name for the full flowering of the radical identitarian leftism that began to come to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s.
Here’s a quote from an article about political correctness on the US university campus,published in 1991. Sound familiar?
Political Correctness and the Suicide of the Intellect
“I turn now to the politicization of campus life. We’ve become familiar with speech codes on the campus that require students and faculty to avoid speech that may be offensive to certain groups.”
He’s talking precisely about what we would now call “woke”.
“One suspects the real reason that activists like AOC want to do away with ‘woke’ is that it’s much harder to fight something if you don’t have a name for it. ”
Precisely so.
This is also one reason for the coinage and use of the smear terms, such as “sexism”, “racism”, “homophobia”, “antivax”, “denier” etc. These terms have double uses, first to smear the target by association with the worst extremes, and second just to identify the target so it can be attacked. “Woke” at present is mostly the latter, though it might come to have some smear uses as well in due course, as people become more widely familiar with the worst extremes of totalitarian, hateful wokeness and its cruel impacts on people. This is a process only now getting underway.
Pre woke, pre political correctness, ‘Right on-ness’ perhaps, was well established by the early 80s, see the second part of my reply to Anti-socialist above.
Pampered narcissistic fascist babies is a more accurate description. This is just a nasty control cult comprising of little princes and princesses who were never bollocked as kids and to try and make any rational sense of it or to be distracted into arguing on their ‘terms’ is a complete waste of oxygen. It’s shape shifting bullshit, it’s never about what they claim it’s about and they don’t care so you’ll never win.
“Fuck off and fuck off while you’re doing it” is the only response we need. And to actively boycott companies and media who cynically ride this nonsense bus.
I love that line, may I use it in future?
Ha yes. You’re describing the foot soldiers of the organised campaign I describe in my post further down and you are absolutely right. They/it/zem/ are ephemeral, don’t know how to construct an argument and don’t actually care anyway because they are pampered and have never experienced struggle. I’ve encountered a lot of this running a sixth form debating society in a leafy middle class secondary school as you can imagine!
I think ‘woke’ is a very deliberate campaign by the ruling/parasite class. As a political strategy is has the following effects:
And all the while taking the focus away from the grotesque levels of inequality, corruption and fraud that exist in the twilight years of empire.
Woke is in effect the perfect defensive preemptive weapon of the parasite class and it’s no surprise to see it emanating from the corporate political class, media and compromised institutions. The word ‘woke’ implies an opening of the eyes to see what’s really there. Our enemies really are diabolical; They aim to rob us of literally everything, not just our power but our understanding of what politics is.
I don’t know which I despise most, the left’s splintering tendencies which you so accurately describe or the Tories generally seeking compromise within themselves; either way it creates an ongoing drift to the left.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is absolutely right: “woke” is indeed a term used, including by racists, as a derogatory word for civil rights and justice.
Where she is wrong is to call it a “euphemism”. It’s a cacophemism.
(There’s one for the 77th brigade to look up, this morning!)
“Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is absolutely right“
An assertion rarely, if ever, made by the sane
AOC is a Maoist, her ‘Green New Deal’ is a repackaging of the ‘Great Leap Forward’.
She is a totalitarian.
https://thenewamerican.com/dr-robert-malone-this-is-the-largest-experiment-performed-on-human-beings-in-the-history-of-the-world/
Robert Malone, has woken up to the true political situation, admits he was naive, tells what he knows – from someone who works in virology and knows all the insiders.
Very important interview, you will learn a lot.
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/rfk-jr-defender-robert-f-kennedy-eric-clapton-covid-vaccine-injury/?utm_source=salsa&eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=e6fea322-22e5-4c3c-a83d-d5d3fe8002f9
Nice interview with Eric Clapton, by Robert Kennedy
Clapton says he is still fairly isolated among his former friends and colleagues for his uncompromising stand on on censorship of adverse reactions to the vaccine and media control.
https://thewhiterose.uk/south-african-physician-dr-shankara-chetty-talks-about-the-bigger-plan/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=the-latest-news-from-our-blog_11
Dr Chetty gives his understanding of where we are.
To judge from the blurb, Shankara Chetty’s understanding looks good. But I try not to watch too much video. Is there a transcript?
I think using the word “woke” in a derogatory manner is ENTIRELY acceptable because by doing so we are using a tactic that is constantly being used against us – the labelling of people as “racists” or “bigots” or “misogynists” or “anti-vaxxers” or “climate sceptics” as a way of shutting down legitimate debate.
It’s about time we stopped playing nice. Because playing nice got us to where we are now – a very successful and destructive march through all of our institutions by the “Woke”.
So “woke” it is. Woke. Woke. Woke. He is woke. Look at that guy. So woke. Look at her. Woke. All these woke people, destroying our country.
Who said you shouldn’t do it? By all means do it and your opponents will expose what it is that you are doing.
If you think calling someone a racist is always wrong, then if I extend to you the courtesy of assuming you are in favour of truth and openness, then that implies you believe that nobody is a racist. In that case, you need to get out some more.
Basically it’s law of the jungle, pro-inherited wealth, sneering name-callers versus those who want fairness and justice and a human society worthy of the name, in which the achievements of every individual can soar to the skies.
“If you think calling someone a racist is always wrong”
I don’t, which you can tell by the absence of those words from my post.
As someone married to a first generation immigrant and with two children (who I have always just thought of as just children until the “identity politics” industry told me I must label them as “mixed race”) I can assure you I am perfectly well aware that racists exist, my wife was a victim of them in 1980s England.
The problem is with people being called “racist” who are not, and with people being called “anti-vax” who are not, in an attempt to shut down legitimate debate.
No, falsely calling someone a racist is wrong.
This is elementary.
Anti-wokism is merely the contemporary wrapper for sneering rightwing hatred directed against those who favour fairness – and, at the very least, a social safety net – rather than the law of the jungle modified by the inheritance of wealth.
The term is mostly used against the same targets that “get back to Russia”, “trendy lefty”, and “politically correct” were in the past:
That a propaganda effort has unfortunately had some success in associating the fight for (and achievements of) social justice with the “right” of gender dysphorics to have their mental illness recognised as sanity, and with the denial of the obvious fact that gender is binary, is essentially neither here nor there.
Many of us who want social justice and who are proud to call ourselves leftwing socialists are also well aware that it takes a man and a lady to make a baby, that the best environment for a child to grow up in is where it has a mother and a father, and consequently that the state should not assist gay adoption.
“Anti-wokism is merely the contemporary wrapper for sneering rightwing hatred directed against those who favour fairness – and, at the very least, a social safety net – rather than the law of the jungle modified by the inheritance of wealth.”
Contra your shameless attempt to smear by association, in reality there is such a thing as “woke”, it is profoundly toxic, and those who resist it are overwhelmingly people who object to it and its consequences.
The bitter irony here is that, in reality, you would not be able to say publicly on the record what you anonymously write here (“it takes a man and a lady to make a baby, that the best environment for a child to grow up in is where it has a mother and a father, and consequently that the state should not assist gay adoption“) and hold onto any position in the organised “socialist left” these days, and indeed would quite probably be hounded out of many ordinary employment positions, if it were to come to the attention of “woke” campaigners.
That’s the hard truth you seem to be evading, here.
What you mis-characterise, presumably intentionally, as “the law of the jungle modified by the inheritance of wealth” is, in this context, basic freedom of speech. The point of freedom of speech is not to let people say nice things to each other. The point is to tolerate the speech we most hate, in order that we receive the same tolerance from others who might hate what we say. “Hate speech” is a pretext for the suppression of dissent. A truth seemingly completely lost by the “socialist left” you claim to adhere to, now that its adherents no longer fear the application of censorship to their own words, opinions and causes.
Woke is Maoist, this is quite obvious.
Socialism is totalitarian and genocidal.
‘Woke’ is just the latest incarnation of Leftist Marxism rebranded. Where these creeps can’t acquire power through the ballot box, they use insidious, subversive means by which to acquire power. The sad thing is that it has largely worked in the Western political hemisphere.
The institutions, academia, government, sport and even the military are now infested with ‘Woke’ thinking. It really is time to stand up to this nonsense and regain this country, starting today, of all days, and such that our children can live in a free and democratic society. Doing nothing and ignoring matters is no longer an option.
I think that Ocasio-Cortez and her like are doing what the ‘cool kids’ always do; bailing out on a term that they enjoyed until all the uncool kids started to use it.
(I’m amazed that Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t yet been toppled like a statue for persisting with her last name, redolent as it is of oppression and genocide.)
Here’s my definition of wokism, or political correctness: the wholesale eradication of Judeo-Christian values, culture and tradition from society.
This is a spiritual war with material consequences. Secularists will always miss the mark because they see everything on an intellectual basis.
Another thing about “woke”, and this explains why the right wing love it so much (any right wingers reading this – yes you do love having something to hate, especially anything to do with fairness, social justice, wealth redistribution, and negative comments about Ian Smith or Enoch Powell, and you know it), is that discourse about “woke” puts the right wing in the saddle.
Thus questions are asked such as “what’s wrong with ‘woke’?” rather than “what the hell is wrong with society where there is such widespread dispossession and poverty in a time when the rich are getting ever richer and there is such highly developed technology?”
Similarly I looked at the list of news items that the company Google supplied to me this morning, and the headlines included
and nothing about any non-Tory critic of the Tory government saying anything.
Many think of themselves as having a good understanding of propaganda. Unfortunately their understanding is usually at far below the level they think it is. Here’s a concept for those who want to improve their understanding: grammatical subject in headlines.
I admire your spirit Star but it’s many a year since Ian Smith or Enoch Powell were topics of lively debate. Most under a certain age, of whatever political persuasion, will even wonder who they are.
Alternative comedians must even be getting tired of ‘Smash Thatcher’ jokes by now.
Wealth redistribution? A thief redistributes your money to himself or herself.
Woke is Maoist.
The worst thing is it isn’t even grammatically correct.
Well NO, that’s not true is it, the ideology is considerably more alarming than poor grammar, if you don’t mind me saying, your priorities seem a little awry here.
You think it isn’t a little alarming that an entire ideology doesn’t understand basic English usage? Then again I suppose I’d be expressing systemic bias for pointing it out…
Anyway, with all due respect I think you need to re-calibrate your sarcasm and flippancy counter a little.
They thought they were being clever by conjuctivating (or whatever its called) ‘Awake’ in a new way to form ‘Woke’ probably in the old public schoolboy way of reinventing ways to invent novel words to describe we plebs.
Fair enough, the English language is forever changing and hopefully it always will do.
I concur, but at least invent words that mean something.
“You think it isn’t a little alarming that an entire ideology doesn’t understand basic English usage? Then again I suppose I’d be expressing systemic bias for pointing it out…”
Well you clearly need a struggle session followed by some time in a re-education camp, since you very obviously don’t understand the evil inherent in the hetero-normative white supremacist genocidal slavery equivalent that is white grammar.
Why White People Grammar Policing Black People is Racist
And don’t come back with any white supremacist far right nonsense about your comment being aimed at a political group rather than a race. Woke people are aspirationally black.
When the metaverse rolls out and everything is click and collect we won’t have to speak to anyone anymore and the racist English language can finally be allowed to die out.
No I don’t get upset over bad gammur & shoddE speeeling. I do rather have a pet peeve about onkine grammer police. I wasn’t being sarcastic!
“50% of the students … are students of colour and yet 80% of the teachers are white”
Well in theory you want teachers that are actually academically able themselves, so what you gonna do?
As far more black kill each other I think it’s a case of black lives don’t matter to other blacks.
Gina Carano’s tweet about ants was the most insightful thing I’ve seen on this topic. It was enough to get her sacked by Disney and disappeared off the internet which tells you she must have been on to something.
Found on the Interwebs
It should show the same guy in both cars, just with grey hair in the left one. Fuck the establishment ever really only meant Fuck the others. And if you are the establishment, fuck the others obvious translates to Fuck you! shouted by the older guy to his younger self.
Civil rights & Justice? In the year 2 of COVID in Cuomo’s New Corona York?
Good one.
So, the limp Lefties who proudly invented that revolting word to describe THEMSELVES are now slanging the people they hate for using it to …. er…. describe the limp Lefties?
One might almost get the feeling that they didn’t expect it to become a pejorative term.
Oh dear, How sad. People who live in glass houses….
The term woke should never be abandoned. It it the perfect alliterative companion to wanker.
I might have a grain worth of sympathy for the BLM cause if the majority of black deaths were not by black people
Please stop acknowledging woke. It is a children’s movement and should be treated as such. Ignore.
I could not agree more.