Wokery is a characteristically modern scourge, laying waste all before it in pursuit of a utopian Year Zero where all ‘oppression’ of minorities is expunged. But where did it come from? Eric Kaufmann, a ‘cancelled’ Canadian academic and now Professor of Politics at Buckingham University, has written a new book trying to answer that question, and Kathleen Stock has reviewed it for the Times.
Stock begins by setting out the “contrast” account offered by Jordan Peterson, “effectively an adherent to a new version of the ‘Reds under the beds’ scare that gripped America in the 1950s”:
He believes that the repressive state of many so-called progressive institutions owes a significant debt to the ideas of the early 20th-century communist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. Frustrated by the failure of economic Marxism to take root in the West, Left-wingers supposedly decided to take a cue from Gramsci and wage a cultural ‘war of position’ instead, covertly infiltrating universities and other public organisations to disseminate their radical ideas and undermine traditional social structures. ‘Wokeness’ is allegedly the result: a garbled melange of postmodernism and neo-Marxist ideas now enjoying a great vogue. The main thrust is that Western categories and values inevitably encode oppressive power relations in favour of dominant white and heterosexual interests, which therefore all must be dismantled in favour of the victimised, colonised and dispossessed.
Yet, “to anyone familiar with the chaos and corporatism of the modern university, this all sounds far too well organised”, says Stock.
Kaufmann’s rival account rings truer: wokeness, understood as the “sacralisation of historically disadvantaged race, gender and sexual identity groups”, derives from a basic emotional impulse of compassion towards the victimised underdog and guilt at past misdeeds. In other words it stems from fairly ordinary Left-liberal motivations.
Instead of a planned coup, it’s an “ecstatic leaderless revivalism”: the emotional reactions came first, and the intellectual window dressing came later. Although wokeness, interpreted in this way, has particularly flourished in elite institutions in the past 10 years, according to Kaufmann the stage was already set in the 1960s, with roots going back much further, and the trend has been waxing and waning ever since.
Kaufmann says that, rather than anything to do with more radical Marxism, the underlying political outlook is “cultural socialism”, a guilt-ridden, mostly vibe-based project with origins in American progressive culture, originally focused upon achieving equality of outcome for black people rather than mere equality of opportunity, and attempting to protect them from various kinds of emotional harm as well.
In supposed service of these two goals, he argues, there sprang up a variety of increasingly tortuous taboos around discussion of race, enforced by white Left-liberals and moving well beyond the stigmatising of intentionally racist language. Later, as sexual minorities started to be perceived as sufficiently worthy victims and got more political attention, the same goals were extended to them, with accompanying taboos prohibiting open discussion of sexual orientation, ‘gender’ and matters arising. Only a very narrow set of ideological views on racial and sexual minorities is now permissible in many workplaces, schools and universities, with any deviation viewed as a probable indicator of moral lack. Shorn of their original rational moorings, claims of ‘harassment’, ‘bullying’, ‘trauma’, ‘racism’ and ‘hate speech’ fly around far too easily.
According to Kaufmann, a Professor of Politics at Buckingham University, the cultural losses due to this unbalanced and repressive political programme have been profound: the neglect of other worthwhile goals such as “freedom, excellence, beauty, community, identity, and reason”; the suppression of information useful for human flourishing; the stigmatisation of people trying in good faith to talk about the negative impacts of unrestricted immigration, the destruction of female-only spaces and other culturally sensitive topics, monstered by the Left as bigots for doing so, and driven into the arms of “populist conservatives” to the triumphalist sneering of their critics. And there have been losses to minorities too. A society that cannot openly discuss issues such as the negative effects of the Black Lives Matter movement on black people, or of militant trans activism upon LGB people, can only bungle responses to these things and make matters worse for all concerned.
Worth reading in full. And you can buy Kaufmann’s book here.
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No deaths?
Time to lockdown until next summer…… just in case
Lockdown forever is, it seems, the plan.
Lockdown glorious lockdown. Be thankful to your overlords for introducing wonderous lockdown to you, the best thing to ever have happened!
That’s a blow. Possibly a glitch in the reporting system.
Better rustle up some variants sharpish. What about the Bolton / Indian because India and the corrupt WHO have said the Indian doesn’t exist.
Come to think of it C1984 hasn’t been isolated has it?
I knew something was wrong .i saw that picture of lots of people in masks looking concerned somewhere in the world at some time or other .So believable isnt it ?????????????????????????.A bit like the photo of the Indian lady on her phone during the recent Covid crisis .Pictures say more than worsd or something
It is transmitted by moonbeams too.
Surprised they haven’t got Russia in on the act…how about a Siberian Tiger variant (so called because – we can think up something later…)
I think a ‘Vietnamese’ variant might be next on the menu.
Caught it on the World Service yesterday.
And fudge some more figures, there must be a way that the many people who have died in car accidents, falling off ladders, heart attacks cancer etc can be put down as Covid deaths.
“England recorded zero Covid deaths for the fifth time since the Government started collecting figures on Monday.”
I think you mean “On Monday, England recorded zero Covid deaths for the fifth time since the Government started collecting figures”
But it’s still Monday here in Northamptonshire, so are you talking about last Monday, the 24th?
Exactly. Piss poor grammar.
First Vaxopropaganda twists your mind and then it twists your syntax.
Bit harsh, we’re not here for perfect grammar and we’re not paying for it. Fair enough if it was the Telegraph or something.
So i shouldn’t ever of made any effort to write english good because it doesnt effect my pay packet?
Wales?
Wales doesnt report anything today – its a bank holiday.
So its not reported 0 deaths at all, its reported nothing and Wednesday will have the figures applied.
As a B/H weekend deaths don’t get recorded. However, on Tuesday the MSM will be screaming 100% increase in covid deaths, whist forgetting to mention this includes an extra day.
The plan is not to return to normal, it is for continuation of loss of liberties and enforced restrictions.
There will be many days of zero scamdemic deaths as we approach summertime which presents the demise of the seasonal corona viruses.
This is terrifying news. If someone dies tomorrow we have the signature exponential death curve. The rate of change of deaths means that afer 23 days 93 million brits will be dead.
But the bbc news at 10 is full of doom and gloom about a third wave, the Indian variant, scientists demanding final lockdown restrictions are not lifted etc etc etc
Because the Beeb is right at the front of the queue of mouthpieces for this utter sham. ‘Kin b*stards.
“Government guidelines say only people over the age of 30 are eligible for the jab but medics offered it to all adults in an effort to ensure nothing is wasted.” ….
… except lives
And countless billions of pounds, businesses that have been built up over many years, Young people’s educations and futures, culture and countless travel opportunities but hey hoe.
Interestingly every headline I’ve seen today has been about “advisors urge delay to reopening”. It’s all I’ve seen.
You know what’s coming………
What’s that nonsense bar chart about?
They’ll say that you can’t die on a bank holiday (as it was yesterday). Wait for the ONS weekly reports in two weeks time – they always use that rationale to explain why the numbers look low cf the 5 year average etc. After all, 31/5 is the latest possible bank holiday in Spring. That’ll happen whatever the real causes of death; loads of certificates ‘in the queue’, perhaps. Then it’ll look spiky in the following week.