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May 18, 2021 - 11:31am
Adam King’s piece in UnHerd about the Government’s Higher Education bill, which brings in legal protections for dissenting academics and will implement swingeing fines to universities that no-platform or censor, is a worthy rejoinder to the ‘culture war’ debate. He argues that a top-down approach from the Government cannot solve the problems of self-censorship and the climate of fear that pervades Britain’s universities. In other words, you “simply can’t legislate for cultural change,” as the Index on Censorship reports.
But both the Bill and Adam’s response seem to be based on a premise of Enlightenment modernism, the idea that we can talk these issues out and agree some sort of muddy compromise, and everyone can go home if not happy, then at least not actively homicidal.
I think this is naive, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the opposing force. Because wokeism — and let us say the word, loud and proud — is not a rational belief system that can be discussed freely. It’s not about reason, logic or dialectic debate but a power grab by a pre-modern pseudo-religion.
This is an inherently destructive sectarian ideology, laden with Kafka traps and the justice of the ducking stool. It is Salem with pronouns and an anime avatar. Any criticism of it is met not with argument and counterpoint but with ‘ah, that’s just what a witch would say!’ It is the opposite of what it says on the tin — not kind, not just, not inclusive.
And crucially, it is not popular.
Contrary to what the Index on Censorship says, there hasn’t been a cultural change, merely the illusion of one. The mass media gives the impression of an organic change, but this is in fact fringe crankery, a rout perpetrated by an upper middle class elite with a grotesque amount of unaccountable power.
We have a situation where enormous effort is spent on preventing radicalisation of one kind, while another carries on in broad daylight. Entire academic fields — ‘queer theory’, ‘decolonising’ — have sprung up based around unquantifiable rubbish, and have started to infect the real ones such as maths, biology, even geography.
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SubscribeA wonderful article that states both the problem and the solution in no uncertain terms. No messing around!
Would you join a campaign to get this done? See my comment.
I’m sympathetic although geographically challenged. (I’m on the East Coast of the United States.)
I did visit the site you posted. (Thanks for doing that.) I understand the mission, but here’s a question about implementation: How do we “assess” whether or not curricula “comply with traditional scholarship standards”?
Vermont has been taken over.
To be middle class and ignore Wokeism is the same as being Tsarist Russian ignoring the Marxists mobilizing in the bourgeois. If they succeed you will be destroyed.
ENTRYISM! (google it – but the wiki is very bad on this word)
Trotskyites use this, as in ‘Militant Tendencies’ (which now is Momentum), and used this process to get Corbyn head of Labour)
It is a way of a few entering an organization without being apparent. They then organize a few more who can then sway votes, are more ‘militant’ and so steam roll over normal members, and finally get the top positions. It is how 5% of membership can completely take over an organization, and then turn it into a militant tone and crush dissent.
The ‘Frankfurt School’ of academic/intellectual Marxists in Wiemar Republic Germany formed up to take over the education systems into a Existential/Marxist/ Freudian/Nihilist form of Liberal-Marxist, and so achieve their goal, through Entryism, of destroying the capitalist West from the inside. Their plans are easily googled. Once they moved to Columbia University in 1950 they used Entryism to capture USA Academia, and so make the education system teach self loathing of Western history, Ideals, and History, to destroy it. Google the Frankfurt 11 points.
It is all there, and that you people have such a problem understanding WOKEISM amazed me. It is pure Hard Left Liberal Marxism out to destroy society. It is a mirror image of BLM, same thing, same history (‘Frankfurt School’ invented ‘Critical Theory,’ which we now know as ‘Critical Race Theory’ – google it – )
WOKISM = plan to destroy the West using ‘Useful Idiots’ created by the kindergarten to university education and MSM and entertainment and Social Media systems – all who are run by Liberal Marxists, all who are part of the MWO out to destroy the West Middle class to create a globalism hell on Earth.
On other words, a classic Trojan horse manoeuvre!
5th Column, Cicero’s ‘The Enemy Within the Gates’.
This is how unions used to work when it was just a show of hands. Look at all the British firms that have gone because they were infiltrated by this lot-so as you say their agenda is to destroy not help the average worker.
This has happened in the U.S. Even the Poetry Foundation in Chicago has been taken over. Smaller Independent Parties have succumbed. Now they’re going after Macintosh.
Furthermore to my last Comment, Antifa is a striking arm. Left fascist.
I have come round to this view based partly on an interview of Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck College, University of London and a board member at Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.
According to Kaufmann, “Woke is defined as sacralization of historically disadvantaged race, gender and sexual minorities….So once you say that these categories of people are sacred, that means then that any kind of criticism of anything that might help, or is in the name of helping, these groups, – such as affirmative action could be one, microaggressions could be another or even the government’s recent paper on equalities and anti-racism – if you say structural racism or institutional racism doesn’t exist, any criticism of something that is in the name of these sacred groups becomes, in effect, putting yourself in the excommunicated box….So when I talk about wokeness, it is anything that would elevate these categories and any ideas around these categories as beyond reproach, beyond criticism, and any research which might be construed as being insensitive, or in some way critical of that, is to be essentially struck down.”
This is a pretty good definition but to get a deeper handle on its underlying framework, one can do no better than newdiscourses dot com.
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-woke-wokeness/
Apart from kafkatraps, there are other fallacious methods such as Moral Presentism in historical analysis in order to render justification for decolonising historical accounts and individuals.
The newdiscourses dot com site has a ‘woke encyclopedia’ that has been formulated alphabetically and based off reading the ‘woke’ literature in order to render thorough explanations.
But at the heart of this is an ideology that does indeed examine real issues, but uses axioms and concepts that are asserted but not demonstrated, in its methodology.
Would you join a campaign to get this done? See my comment.https://genderparity.uk/defund-ideology/
I would join a campaign to defund institutions that sell all the crazy notions, including Gender stuff, which your organisation focuses on. The problem is that to some extent your aims may add on even more ideologies instead of returning us to sanity, even though the latter is your aim.
If it’s religious — the words ‘sacralization’ and ‘sacred’ are used in the article — then government opposition will be read as oppression and the believers will double down on their beliefs and struggle all the harder for them. If they succeed in capturing the government — which is not at all impossible even if they are a goofy minority — they will now exert the same behaviors against those whom they perceive as their former oppressors. The wiser politicos used to try to keep stuff like this from happening, but I guess no more.
Interesting. Please explain:”your aims may add on even more ideologies instead of returning us to sanity,”.
The empirical tradition could be said to be an ideology – but that’s pushing the definition a bit far, isn’t it?
‘We currently have a situation where working people pay for middle-class children to be taught to despise them, and to hate their own civilisation’.
Spot on. I hope my 14 year old decides not to go to university. I’ll try to help her find a job with in house training or an apprenticeship so she is spared all this horrible brainwashing – oh, and the huge burden of debt just at the start of her adulthood.
Student laons are the most destructive financial instrument ever invented! They caused university costs to inflate 10X, they encouraged people with no ability for university to take on huge debt, they allowed people to study non-paying subjects and then take on unsustainable debt. They enslaved the young in debt who did NOT have the mental experience to make that decision. Student Loans destroyed higher education and turned the people into debt slaves.
University is now seen as the obvious next step in life for,( rather just for a few academically minded )upper working/middle class.From June even the police now require a degree , which means you can’t enter teaching , nursing or, the police to train on the job.Teenagers don’t like to be different from their friends-a way to get round this is to home school or to find a school that is really selective in the way it teaches and look for good online degree courses.
I think that the time has come to stamp on this woke nonsense.
See the article in the Spectator about Lisa Keogh, she is facing disciplinary actin from her university because she told the truth.
Whilst the Government should be withdrawing money from such universities, perhaps they could also remind those members of the R of P that cartoons have a long history in the UK and we expect them to tolerate our way of life.
Apparently, she made the comment during a debate about gender.
A man is a man and a woman is a woman, change as much about yourself as you wish, that’s your prerogative, but you can’t change nature, opposite sex was for the function of procreation, like it or lump it.
BS, there are Hermaphrodites in Humans. Also some more ambiguous conditions. This is natural in genetics, if uncommon. That it has become political is the problem, but it is definitely biological.
But to be fair, what is under discussion is not those extremely rare and sad cases but the current emphasis on attempting to turn perfectly formed biological humans into the opposite sex through mutilation and hormones etc. just because the body’s owner ‘feels’ like it. This is political manipulation of mentally disturbed people to suit a certain agenda. I call it human abuse.
But that’s not where the problem lies, and you know it. The trouble rather is that we have physically normal men claiming to be women, and a smaller number of female counterparts saying they’re males. If they were willing to undergo sex change surgeries, there might be no problem. But a great many refuse to do so.
When you buy an electrical item its instructions do not differ because of the buyer’s biology. Certain terms ie mankind are employed for convenience , if you have to go through a shopping list of various terms life is going to get very tedious.
Well, on the internet you can be anything you want to be. You appear to self-identify as a woman and I’m happy to take your word for it. There are actually very few transgender people, yet the right seem weirdly obsessed by them. Why is that?
So you dont accept 57,000 Genders?…
As a Private Eye reader I love a cartoon, but I seem to remember one J Corbyn of Islington getting into trouble over a mural…
When you have run out of first-world problems to debate, you resort to manufactured problems. Enter the wokerati, ever bent on ignoring the monumental social changes that have occurred in the past 50-100 years.
This speaks to the nature of activism – it is almost never about resolving a problem. It may start that way but resolution means that those involved have to find something else to do. By then, the cause has become a racket and people are not willing to hop off the gravy train or give up their pulpit.
So well said
Precisely. There is no votes for women. There is no I want to sit at the front of the bus. Modern bullsh*t activism has no goal, and no pathway to improving anything. Just the pleasure of endless victimhoid.
I despise they way the BBC and other left wing media use the moniker of “Activist” as a badge of honour. I take it to mean nosy, self serving, narcissistic troublemaker.
Out of interest, what label would you use for people like the Tax Dodgers’ Alliance (also regularly given a platform on the BBC?)
Exactly; one of the core attributes of wokery is to constantly move the goalposts so that there’s always a fresh supply of accidental victims, eg. disowning the word woke; denying footballers taking the knee was anything to do with BLM; endless new fragments of gender identities to trip up the ignorant etc. etc. Such a strategy relies on gaining power either via forcing individuals/organisations to apologise (remedy – just stop it) or materially affecting individuals’ careers (remedy – start enforcing the laws of the land properly). According to left wing sympathisers, apparently “private companies can do what they want” which betrays quite some ignorance of both the real world and employment laws. The real and abiding mystery is why on earth organisations feel compelled to apologise, or respond? A few months of just ignoring this bullshit and (once activists have flounced off a few times), it would simply fizzle out 😀
Hear hear, ignoring their demands and little fist shaking for long enough will result in them stomping off in a petulant strop to sulk. Just like a child, ignore them until they see that their tantrums aren’t getting them anywhere. Their mummies and daddies can always buy them a new car or house to make them all better.
How can anyone misunderstand reality as much as your post does? That uber-Woke Dorsey and Zukerberg rule the world’s information highways, that all the MSM excepting maybe 2, are in their control, you think can be defeated by ignoring them till they have a tantrum and stomp off?
Ignoring this Woke attack on the Western society is as wise as Tsarist Russians ignoring the Marxists. The Woke are out to destroy the West. Can there be any doubt of that when watching the Biden Democrats?
a good article, but our useless political class are drawn from these same useless universities that were too weak to resist and greedy for the cash of the entitled adultoddlers they pander too.
The GenderTheory Jihadist are at the barricades they have their phasers set to whine but if provoked can increase to confected outrage expressed on twitter.
Best thing I’ve read this morning — and I read a lot.
T’is right on target; crisp; surgically precise; well done.
A very good proposal. I was pondering a variant of this today when reading about that lunacy of the 29-year-old law student at Abertay University in Dundee, currently being investigated by the university for the crime of saying that women have vaginas and men are stronger than women.
The fact that the investigation is taking place should be sufficient to withdraw funding. It is such an insane, egregious assault on reason and debate that it is hard to see how the perpetrators can consider themselves a university.
This kind of destructive nonsense has been allowed for too long. Time to resist. The government must act.
Yes yes yes!!
The way to kill it is really easy, and even better it will save the taxpayer hundreds of billions of pounds. Just stop funding the madrassas of wokism that are university humanities and social science departments by not giving student loans – the ones that will never be repaid – to fund them.
Have you thought of running for PM
Dr Jordan Peterson specified a number of faculties in the ” humanties that are mainly singular political propaganda machines of progessive left woke noise and do not belong in the universities or secular( dogma free) publicly funded public education system.They need to exposed for what they are and removed.Like every other political or religious dogma driven group, they can operate by their supporters efforts. The universities should be restored to their original purpose of open pursuit of knowledge and education , not the tool of an oppressive truthless tyrannical intolerant fanatical woke cult.
Abolish Climate departments &their Anti-Science War on Carbon,life giving photosynthesis to Crops,Plants ,Flowers etc…Carbon forms 0.04% of Atmosphere ..
Would you join a campaign to get this done? See my comment. https://genderparity.uk/defund-ideology/
Brilliant and succinct, thank you again, Gareth! Let’s hope it encourages more people to oppose this madness!
I agree with this article, that we need to end the current situation, re the teaching of wokeness, by withdrawing public funding unless it changes. What I’m uncertain about, is the extent to which any woke lecturing should be tolerated. Of course, private individuals should be free to express woke views ( and, I would say, in entirely privately funded institutions, even to preach those views ). I think there shouldn’t be public funding for courses that try to preach woke beliefs, but perhaps it should be permissible to publicly fund courses which truthfully describe woke and anti-woke views and the arguments for and against them both, and/ or which encourage rational, tolerant debate on the subject.
But there may be some flaws in my provisional thinking on this and someone else may have some better ideas.
I don’t disagree with your views but I’m not sure your views are in accord with the article. The description of university learning you describe is exactly what I experienced in the late 80’s when we studied post-modernist theory. Certainly wasn’t brainwashing.
It is now. Things have changed a lot since then.
Teachers Training Colleges ,geography classes break 1996 Education Act….Opposite View To Climate being driven by the Sun! is ignored
It’s an outrage! Flat Earthers are being ignored all over the globe
Yes! Well said! Wokeism is none other than Marxism seeking to overthrow our state and our culture, to control our history and in so doing to control our future.
The tactic it uses is creating a state within a state, and to push zero sum type envy arguments as Marxism always does. In this way to gradually take over the infected state just like other tyrannies would do when they get critical mass such as enough immigrants/ births. Wokery is most likely subsidized, as well, by other tyrannies elsewhere who wouldn’t tolerate such stupidity among their own people. Wokes are rendering our progress impossible, forcing the wokery arguments to be above those of science itself making Mathematics and Physics “racist” as they are doing today. Forced outcomes are standard for art, viewers don’t want to go near the Oscars obviously.
The average worker and not very wealthy worker is being made to pay (by HMRC! The Government tax collector!) for the Traitor Manufacturing Plants like Cambridge which seek to put back and to destroy the worker / tax payer’s society. To withdraw funds from the BBC, Cambridge etc. is every day more necessary. We are feeding the Woke Cancer which is trying to kill us. A law to promote free speech will not be enough for “self-regulation”. Eventually if we don’t purge the Marxists, the Marxists will purge us (don’t kid yourself that is where de-platforming aims to end in: Marxist purges), these are frustrated but upper-class / upper-middle class people and they are powerful people who get placements through “influence” without merit, that is how they derive their power, by organizing themselves.
We need to build a Meritocracy, we need to Marxist-Decolonize our Civil Service, Education Service, Judiciary etc. and that can only be done by the Government (as it says here) which in taking on the cranks will become even more popular as it gives us back our horizons by purging the Marxists constantly deprecating us and our greatness. By taking away their sustenance at least we do something not to feed the cancer. I would add purges. Why should taxpayers give money to a school which takes down the flag of our country? Let the country behind their wokery pay for their education.
In the end the only way to get rid of Marxism is to purge them and subject all attainment to MERIT. Merit is poison to the Marxists and their incompetent followers. Marxism is against competition Marxism is incompetent since it was created.
A man of immense sense.
I agree, but there are too many signs of wokeism infecting the “conservative” government. Look for example at self-identification in prisons, which has led to sex offenders with intact male genitalia being placed in women’s prisons, even after ten years of “conservative” government. Is this government really on our side on this issue?
Absolutely right. Gender Parity UK have just started a campaign on this. Please take a look and maybe join us?
Although Conservative MPs are not promoting this yet, I am pretty confident they would be up for it.
The best way may not be to confront Wokism’ directly – ie we don’t say ‘Defund Wokeism’ when communicating with politicians, but something more general about ‘examining the approaches of all publicly-funded, academic departments to check that they are evidence-based’
Who’s up for this? https://genderparity.uk/defund-ideology/
A minor hysteria masquerading as mass hysteria. Deadly infections can seem innocuous.
there will over the coming decades be civil strife, an increase in racial division and hatred — a cruel, suspicious, totalitarian society that will likely face disorder and possibly eventual collapse
All that is going to happen anyway, regardless of whether wokeism is cancelled, as mass immigration from numerous antipathetic cultures transforms Britain into a Third World failed state and living nightmare.
Unless people wake up and do something about it now, I’m no intellectual but it’s sure to be in someone’s hands to start the necessary changes. Defunding the universities as suggested was spot on.
A great many women woke up to this several years ago and are already doing something about it. Who do you think it was who took the ONS to court and forced them to put the sex question back into the census? A group of clever women. Who took The Tavistock GIDs Clinic to court? A brave young woman, crowdfunded largely by women.
Don’t worry, you can always go and live in one of 27 other countries – oops
Why dont you go away ..fool ../
Inconvenient when people have a different point of view, isn’t it? Perhaps this site should be renamed “Herd” so that it remains a safe space for Telegraph readers to whip each other up into a populist froth without having to deal with any counter-arguments…
Excellent article. I’ve lived through around 40 years of a nationalist takeover in Catalunya, Spain. It’s not wokeism but it has used the very same techniques to achieve power, little by little. From experience, no appeasement is possible. No lies can go unanswered and no History allowed to be warped. School children must be protected from indoctrination and teachers/schools held accountable. Nepotism must be outlawed and limits put on terms of office for politicians at any level of Government, which should be rationalised as much as possible.A firm government can do this, if you’ve got one handy…
In court, where rules of evidence apply and guilt beyond reasonable doubt must be proven, the empty evasions and fabricated distractions of the woke LeftSpeak are exposed and rightfully inadmissable..
The woke are guilty and violate existing laws , against criminal harrasment, racism, deliberate funancial loss, slander/ defamation, human rights violation , etc.
They are verifiabely guilty of everything they falsely accuse to silence others.Targeted citizens have taken the woke to court
..and won.
The malicious woke progressive tyranny must not only be stopped.They should be identified, brought to justice and consequences fitting for harms, losses, violations , divisions and pain they have inflicted.
I also abhor the woke stance and especially their methodology, but will point out something that gets lost in the passion of the fight: There are valid concerns mixed up in the list of woke grievances.
It is a tragedy that radical polarization pushes everyone away from the sorely needed honest discussion about frankly wrong standards in our society. I wish it wasn’t so.
Much as I would also like to see radical woke platforms defunded, I fear that it will not help to bring true problems into honest debate.
Judith Butler is not a real academic. She is engaged in a protracted and elaborate piece of performative art.
Remember this, everytime someone asks you “what is ‘Woke’?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning
Thanks for that link – haven’t known the term ‘sealioning’, and delighted to see it originates from Wondermark, an old favourite.
Yes, that’s what the chorus of Guardianistas pipe up with each time they come upon a comment they dislike. Last one said “i need a peer reviewed source on it” on Sunday, then my fourth (and last) account there got permabanned. (It was about th¡rdworld population growth, a comment minefield at the Grun).
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a short, illustrated pamphlet titled “how to debate with rightwingers” or such, with bullet points, circulating among the woke. I know there’s one in Germany, i’ve seen it. One of the main rules said “keep asking for evidence, links, sources”.
Their arguments are so poor, they resort to a whole range of techniques and fallacies: ad hom, strawman, Motte and Bailey etc.
We are literally having a debate in the comments section underneath a textbook strawman argument. (Why have a reasoned debate with your opponent when you can discredit him by labelling him “woke”?)
They don’t just want to wipe out British history and beliefs they want to wipe out the English language, as we know it, and replace it with their own. Poor deluded fools.
You cannot uphold free speech by banning a type of speech, or ideas (in this case identity politics or ‘woke’) you do not approve of, that is censorship.
The Equality Act 2010 with it’s Protected Characteristics and Hate Crime legislation justifies what wokeism appears to be. As long as this law remains in place, people who espouse ‘woke’ ideology have recourse to the law to back up their feelings of offence, and institutions and corporations are legally obliged to take action by sacking the offenders, putting ‘protection’ in place etc.
Blaming the young people who are woke cannot be the answer, all you are doing is acting out the divisiveness that the law has caused.
The law needs to be changed.
Excellent point well made. The ‘Equality Act’ – an odious stain on the fabric of law – needs to be scrapped altogether. Long overdue.
‘…real arguments about why discrimination against disabled and gay people shouldn’t be illegal.’
Phew! For one second I thought that was serious. There is a viciousness abroad.
Suggesting repeal of a law, which enables dignity and equal access, comes from a mean, crushing spirit of malevolance.
(‘If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever’.)
Another Long March, for those who ardently support this woke rubbish the end and their triumph must appear close. There is nothing left to challenge their actions or narrative. The illness has wormed into every institution that has a say in shaping our country. What ever colour or creed this abandoning of logic and reason, ideology over science will not bode well for any off us.
But then, apparently Gravity is also just a symptom of White Supremacy, so it’s best not to pay attention to anything the formerly Woke – just what do the woke call themselves these days? – actually say.
I agree. The biggest problem we face in West is that the so called Right, those who will not vote Left, are still living within the Left’s moral framework and worldview. Until our leaders are willing to get out of their comfort zone and apply raw power to the problem of intolerant leftism, the intolerant will continue to roll society. Defunding the Universities is a first step. Hammering the Legacy Press on their advocacy and manipulations is another; ideally billionaire anti woke business mogols should be approached about buying out the NY Times, CNN, or other legacy media to make them explicitly non-woke institutions. Leftist Mega funders, Soros, the Ford Foundation, Melinda Gates, etc.. need to be called out on their beliefs and badgered to embrace non woke positions, explicitly and with dollars. Repeal the Equality Act of 2010. Wind down the “Supreme” Court. Reverse Devolution.
Please get busy Boris.
HEAR HEAR!!!!!
How fascinating. I think the meaning of “Woke” is different here across the pond in America. Here it refers to “awareness” … more specifically awareness of systematic racism, a problem the US has had and still has, especially due to the historical fact of slavery and its aftermath. More generally, it is an awareness of just a lack of Social Justice, the bigger picture that MLK came to recognize. Not sure about there, but here I think we could paraphrase John Locke, one of the philosophical founders of American Democracy by saying “without Social Justice, there will be no Social Peace.”
Yes, this is the correct meaning. Here in the UK it has been adopted by the Right as a convenient way to undermine any form of social progress it doesn’t like.
There is no ignoring the current situation.
Democratic government must act. I have given up on the centre liberal left, they are the Menshevicks, trying to rein in the Bolshevicks.
There are plenty of highly critical voices out there, notably Bret Weinstein, who in a recent podcast, mentioned that his former University at Evergreen,has had a significant drop in applicants since he was dismissed.
I see at first hand the cosmopolitan, professionals in banking, tech, law etc, sending their children to board at fee paying private schools. There they find other affluent pupils from often rootless families. They imbibe a liberal education with the fashionable “woke bits” that are
deemed a practical necessity, in order to negotiate life in the 21st century job market. Much like a novice in a 14th century cloister with the latest theology straight from the Vatican. Already primed they compete for Oxford or Brown or Edinburgh, Yale or the LSE. Its a conveyor belt. £300,000+ worth.
I am already witnessing friends, advising their kids to think about whether Uni is worth it, not just the humanities, but also STEM. Funnily enough art schools and music conservatoires are relatively normal, possibly because they deal in something other than words and that subjecting such people to collective thought control, really exposes the face beneath the mask.
Wokeism will eventually hit universities in the pocket,too unruly to attract students of quality. There are already far too many universities and on many of the less intellectually demanding courses, the teaching and contact time is woeful. The cost to young people is offensive.
I spent 7 years in uni, at the taxpayers expense, I had great teachers, it was fun, I learnt a lot about life. There were lots of Marxist around, but the Soviets were still in power, we read Gulag archipelago, we saw how this stuff goes.
BBC, how about”Communisum, a warning from history ” No? how did I guess.
Let’s offer more vocational apprenticeships for our children and reject the current middle class idiocy that frequently attends universities.
We may see something that I witnessed in many European countries in the 80’s were the political make up of everything from hospitals to museums was monitored to maintain political equilibrium. I should like to see fewer graduates entering the civil service, let’s give smart kids with 4 A-levels a shot at the entrance exams.
Government must amend the 2003 criminal law Bill, to attend to hate speech, so that it is much more specifically related to speech that threatens physical harm or public order rather than a perception of harm based on a single complainant ,currently it is open to the widest interpretation and is used to shut people up and settle scores.
No person should be coerced into undergoing ideological training at work, at risk of losing a job or promotion, companies that do so should be taken to court.
Above all keep talking to people about this, not on social media where discussion is pretty impossible, but to friends and work colleagues. Remain civil, this is an important aspect, don’t become the shouty person.
I don’t think the Conservatives are up to it, they seem rather keen to pay the danegeld. Someone in the party needs to seize this nettle and try to build some concensus with moderate Labour and Liberal politicians.
I’ll get the usual heat on this one, but for what it is worth, I’ll try to make my point.
Wokeism is clearly a counter-Enlightenment movement. I would assert that it’s a result of an unresolved conflict relating to the true nature of Enlightenment. To be more specific, it’s a result of the inability of Enlightenment to acknowledge (atone for?) its past sins.
Those who aren’t willing to explore (and accept) this heritage and willing instead to cling to the idea (the fiction) that Enlightenment merely freed human minds and had a universally positive impact on humanity, they’ll be called cis heteronormative racist white males.
Does this make wokeism a very good idea, an unassailable force for good? No, I don’t think so. I’d rather argue, it’s a result of the inability of the Western world to accept the true heritage of Enlightenment. It’s more a festering open wound than a solution to anything.
Calm down! Capitalism is at its best in co-opting crazy ideas, homogenizing them with reality, and sifting out the fragments that are valuable and worthwhile to a society. As David Brooks recently wrote in the NYT: The primary ideology in America [and, I assume the UK and EU as well] is success; that ideology has a tendency to absorb all rivals. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/13/opinion/this-is-how-wokeness-ends.html)
I also like economist Tyler Cowen’s comment that wokeness will become something more like the Unitarian Church — “broadly admired but commanding only a modicum of passion and commitment.”
It all takes time. Nothing to fear. Most students don’t really care about the woke nonsense they are taught. Businesses need to make a profit, wokeness be damned. Future generations will find a new cause du jour to occupy their immature years, and will look back on these times and say “They really believed that?”
That was a very interesting reference in NYT. I’d argue wokeness doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and will end when Trump ends: when the American elite manage to quell the “peasant revolt”. This may mean American will be past wokeness 10-20 years down the line with the American white-working class tensions cooling down, and it may explode in Europe…
How does firm government close down wokeism? I am not clear how this can be done apart from defending free speech.
It’s extraordinary seeing people who normally claim to fundamentally oppose any type of state interference go crying to the Government to intervene because they got upset about having to use a gender-neutral toilet
Perhaps. But this comment relies on inappropriately generalising those ‘who normally claim to fundamentally oppose any type of state interference’, so as to snidely label commenters here.
To paraphrase my mother.. give em enough woke and they’ll hang themselves. At least there’s no risk of woketalitarianism on here. I enjoy reading the diverse range of opinion… mostly
The political party that first realises this is a vote winner and grabs hold of the nettle will richly reap the rewards.
Great article.
Don’t get me started! One more thing. Douglas Murray said he thought that only the self employed would be able to provide a bulwark against creeping wokedom. So self employed, next time you clip a poodle, knock in a fence post, do the accounts or extract a tooth, find out if the customer is “woke” advise them of their “privilege” and charge an extra 20%.
Adam King’s earlier less optimistic piece on the government’s proposals is unfortunately probably more realistic. This is because many conservatives (large and small C) don’t really understand the threat.
Introducing a bureaucratic control system that can easily be gamed and dominated by the legions of woke true believers in academia won’t work. Boris Johnson is a big problem here, he wants to be liked and seems to spend half the time actually pandering to this nonsense.
Woke-ism is such an evil, it should be rigorously and ruthlessly combatted, never mind the bleating of The Guardian etc, they represent a small minority. Weaponise the issue and the majority will be on your side. Let’s use the law cleverly, for example “biology-deniers” who deny that men and women are fundamentally biologically different should be sanctioned and dismissed from their posts. Use the majority! It seems to work pretty well for the Hungarians and Poles.
But will the Tories even begin to do what it takes? I don’t see much chance, so the earlier article by Adam King is probably more realistic.
Let’s start waging the cultural war in a counterattacK. Repeal the Equality Act and similar legislation, require all films and repeated TV programmes to be shown completely uncut regardless of watersheds, adverts or complaints, and make it plain that acceptable then is acceptable now and vice versa.
I love the passion in this. In the US, I think that this kind of initiative will quickly run into First Amendment problems. If everyone is saying stupid shit, the government cannot prohibit that, because, in our system, stupid shit is still protected speech!
There should be no problem with people saying stupid shit like anyone can be a woman if they decide they are, as long as there is no problem with others saying f*ck off you are talking shit now go away and stop bothering me with your ludicrous warped take on reality.
I’m rather ignorant on the reach of the US 1st Ammendment. But isn’t there a separation of State and religion? What is being proposed in the UK is a separation of woke ideology from state funded institutions, including schools and universities. The woke are perfectly free to fund their own institutions/universities. Such as Moslems and Christians have done.
Classic
This reads like a Sarah Vine or Bojo the Clown piece from the Mail or Telegraph. Before being taken over by the rabid mob, woke meant to be aware of others circumstances, a value that most decent people would subscribe to.
An excellent article and the right response. Action needs to be taken and it should be Government led.
Well said. Popper’s (actual) ‘paradox of tolerance’: When the other side meets your words with their boots and fists, those who support free expression need to use force too.
Don’t overlook the attack on our children by the neo-Marxists who took over Stonewall and its allies, with their idiotic cult of transgender ideology, which tells us that sex and biology are mere social constructs, reality being what is in your head. Their purpose, as they are invited into schools by half-witted or malign head teachers and local authorities, is to confuse and upset the children and so destabilise society preparatory to a left wing totalitarian take-over. It is all orchestrated and funded globally by Soros and the like, and is utterly vicious.
And by the way, no human being is ‘non-binary’. Insofar as it means anything at all it is used by the transgender activists to indicate that someone’s fantasy is that they are not male or female at all but something quite different, like moon gender or Martian gender, or rhinoceros gender, and so forth. Pure imagination, make-believe and fantasy immersed in a fiction, and not worth a jot of any sane person’s consideration.
This is the white Western male view on this argument.
All others need not apply.
Good piece of writing, but Adam King’s proposal is still a good one even though it doesn’t get to the root of the problem. People are fearful of their jobs and livelihood if they can be dismissed (or visited by the cops) for saying something not in line with the wokists’ ever-changing guidelines. Take away that fear and more people will speak up. A further problem with this piece is that it let’s the government do the work, letting the silent majority off the hook. If they don’t have any fighting spirit left, would they ask the government to do their fighting for them?
Finally. Common sense analysis of how to address the plague of Wokeism.
This sort of article is just so boring and now seems to be the norm on Unherd. This is a complete non-issue which the government is exploiting to hide the fact that it is has no real policies with regards to the serious issues facing this country.
Where is the serious thinking in government on any of these issues and more pertinently where are the articles from Unherd writers on any of these subjects? Thank God for Aris and his excellent pieces on geopolitics. At least someone is addressing important issues.
If you are the polar opposite to the Guardian, which was the paper I grew up with and have had delivered daily for 40+ years, where are the Unherd counterparts to George Monbiot, John Harris and Aditya Chakrabortty. I came on here to hear the other side of the argument on environmental, economic and social issues but there is next to nothing on any of these.
Fair enough you have championed the alternative views on how to deal with Covid but the rest is just culture war indulgence. Put down your fiddles and have a go at addressing serious subjects before the world burns down around you.
It’s a culture war entirely of the left’s making. Maybe it’s because they’re equally short on policies. Much easier to remove statues, rename streets or call mothers, “birthing persons”.
Well put. Let’s discuss issues and ideas.
What I think you miss is that it’s through taking control of the kind of issues that you list that the ‘left’ (obviously it’s not really left wing anymore but we need a term) stakes its claim for power. Take the first issue on your list, climate change, we could argue about how serious it is and whether there is a ‘crisis’ or whether it’s more realistic to say that future generations are going to have to deal with problems. We could refer to Bjorn Ljomborg or Michael Shellenberger, both of whom believe in man-made global warming and that it will be a problem but have forwarded alternative solutions to totalitarian control over resources.
It’s the same with every issue you mention and more. The ‘left’ (the fearful collectivist mentality) wants control, wants power and it will do anything to obtain it. Anything! Around it is a fantastical worldview that demonises all those who don’t conform, like Ljomborg and Shellenberger, like the many cancelled and fired for their views.
The real problem with all those issues is that the authoritarian, totalitarianism of the left will be worse: environmentalism will be worse than climate change; BLM style anti-racism will be worse than racism; the religious-like worshipping of an NHS used to control the public’s behaviour and gather data, however well funded, will be worse than a poorly funded health service; a well-funded brainwashing education curricula centered around critical theory will be worse than a decrepitly underfunded education programme.
The best the left has got to offer in terms of reasoned arguments are demonisation, cancellation and violence towards opponents. There are often grains of truth in the criticism of the ‘right’ as greedy, racist capitalists. But the left has become violently unhinged by focussing on these minor aspects and claiming that’s all there is, whilst hypocritically garnering immense wealth off the backs of impoverished, developing world labour, in particular during the pandemic when thousands of small businesses have gone to the wall as Big Tech becomes the powerful elite. Some left wing levelling up there.
I have absolutely no idea where all these “left” people are. They seem like some mythical monster or more like an Aunt Sally that Unherd and in particular its BTL commenters have to create, in order to justify this endless culture wars bilge. They aren’t in government anywhere in the Western World, they are not in control of the Democrats or the Labour Party. They are not in control of the media, which is predominantly right of centre in this country, they don’t control education unless Gavin Williamson has suddenly converted. Where are they?
Sometimes I feel Unherd readers are still living in the 50’s worrying about reds under the bed.
There’s nothing I can do for you if you’re so unperceptive. Big Tech is overwhelmingly leftist and funded Biden’s campaign, raising three times more than Trump and the highest figure ever raised for an election campaign. University academics are overwhelmingly leftist, as is the teaching profession. The media is polarised, which is unhealthy but most MSM is leftist. The Dems are grotesquely woke, have you not seen them taking the knee? Starmer took the knee, and the Red Wall collapsed even further because its wokeism is transparently hypocritical. The Tories aren’t exactly woke but they’ve not had the balls to stand up to it and Johnson knows that he has to go along with environmentalist cos Biden said so. It’s because of wokeism that the BLM riots weren’t criticised. It’s because of the polarised tribalism that the lab leak theory, which has recently been revealed as the most likely source of the virus, was condemned as a right wing conspiracy. The advertising industry has become woke, you’d think Britain was 50% black if you just watched ads, Hollywood has become woke, and footballers take the knee. You really have to be blind not to see this.
Of course, they’re not really ‘left’, it’s all a pose and terminology is problematic. They just want power and virtue signal to demonstrate their moral fitness for it. But there you are, that’s how superficial politics is today.
Fair point, but I don’t agree. In my view in this case culture is upstream of politics. As such it is a serious subject worthy of government attention as much as the other subjects you list.
“Wokeism” is straw man tosh – an imaginary enemy for Daily Mail readers who use it to demonise everything from gay marriage to climate science. Particularly depressing to see a writer who has previously used the freedom of speech defence to whine about being cancelled, now demanding that others should face the same sanctions for thinking differently to him. What a mess our country is in if this is the level of our national debate.
I don’t agree. For an in depth look into what lies behind the term and hence its justified usage go to
newdiscourses dot com/tftw-woke-wokeness/
As ‘wokeism’ isn’t defined this is a particularly pointless article.
You obviously didn’t bother to read it.
“Entire academic fields — ‘queer theory’, ‘decolonising’ — have sprung up based around unquantifiable rubbish, and have started to infect the real ones such as maths, biology, even geography”.
So what was the point of your comment again?
OK – if we take those as examples of woke we would discuss the meaning and merits of ‘‘q***r theory’ and ‘decolonising’’ in a reasonable and civilised way – which is what should be happening in universities.
The article is saying that there is something about these issues that means they can’t be discussed rationally and therefore discussion should be banned by Government Diktat. Cancelled – to use the anti-woke’s language.
For the normally libertarian UnHerd readership I’m surprised at the level of support for a proposal of blatant censorship by an authoritarian government.
By not defining woke as individual theories or views or even assertions but as a whole way of thinking the article is defining woke as thought crime but without defining what the criminal thoughts are.
These issues can’t be argued rationally because critical theory is nonsense.
Another passage from the article:
“…is not a rational belief system that can be discussed freely. It’s not about reason, logic or dialectic debate but a power grab by a pre-modern pseudo-religion.
This is an inherently destructive sectarian ideology, laden with Kafka traps and the justice of the ducking stool. It is Salem with pronouns and an anime avatar. Any criticism of it is met not with argument and counterpoint but with ‘ah, that’s just what a witch would say!’ It is the opposite of what it says on the tin — not kind, not just, not inclusive”.
The idiocy of ‘woke’, Critical Theory, Post-modernism or whatever label it gives itself has been throughly deconstructed over at New Discourses.
Or perhaps you enjoy being a member of a cult?
No matter how many pigs you keep throwing off from the top of a high building, none of them will fly. At some point you should draw a conclusion (pigs don’t fly; wokes don’t reason), and abort the experiment.
That point has passed many years ago.
No. The article says there’s something about the wokes, and not ‘something about the issues’. You have read that wrong. Maybe you could try re-reading it.
That take on the article makes the conclusion even more sinister.
‘Wokes must be cancelled. By firm government’
What exactly makes it “sinister” to you?
Does any of the following statements sound sinister to you:
“Corruption must be cancelled. By firm government.”
“Nepotism must be cancelled. By firm government”
Etc.
So what is it about wokery what makes that conclusion sound “sinister” to you?
What do you the point of governing is?
It’s sinister because you said the article was not a criticism of wokery but of the wokes. That changed it from being about cancelling ideas, which is bad enough, to cancelling people.
‘Wokeries’ is an umbrella term for various articles of faith aligned to a central underlying dogma. Claiming you don’t know what it means is grossly disingenuous.
And it’s not a mere “thought crime”, far from it. Wokery translates to legislation, educational standards, economic outcomes etc. etc. Wokery has very material, tangible consequences.
So why not show us how seriously you take it by being specific. Who are the victims of “woke”? Which laws do you want to see reversed? You may be surprised to find that your enemy is not one amorphous blob, but a variety of liberal thinkers some of whom have views you would define as “woke” in regard to, for example, race; but not, say, gender. Engage with us. Let’s debate issues like adults rather than calling each other names.
Just a few off the top of my head:
Every student / job applicant / social housing applicant etc. etc. who gets treated unfairly because of quota systems (positive discrimination).
Every academic / professional / student / employee / private sector person who gets sacked / expelled / sabotaged for opinions the woke find disagreeable.
Everybody who enters the education system to get a valuable education, but is instead given a devalued rubbish because the curricula are “decolonised”.
Everybody who is forced to self-censor, because they would loose their job / livelihood if they voiced their opinions.
Etc.
You calling them “liberal” does not make them liberal.
Thank you for being so specific about which laws you wish to see reversed. I guess all you have to do now is join a political party and campaign on a pro-hate speech, anti-immigrant manifesto.
Perhaps you really do regard other races as inferior (as implied by your dismissal of the intellectual contributions of the global south as “devalued rubbish”) – or maybe you’re just having a bad day.
Personally I won’t be voting for you as you come across as rather embittered. But the way things are going in this country, you might win.
I agree with you here. Actually the original bill is suffice, and this article actually goes in contradiction of it.
The government should punish universities for not allowing free speech – by no-platforming or cancelling speakers or lecturers – but should decide what can and cannot be said.
This article strays into that territory a bit I think
Not at all. What should be happening in universities is the teaching of mathematics, history, biology, etc. etc. Teaching of subjects. NOT discussing all the various things / aspects those subject are not related to in any way whatsoever.
Since when should the discussion of the “meaning and merits” of nonsensical ¡d¡ocies be happening in universities? Universities are supposed to be places of learning. NOT places of discussing meritless nonsense.
It helps if you see Wokeism as being the same as fascism. They’re rooted in the same hatred and resentment, and both lead to the same outcomes.
That’s fair enough. Then we could have a debate about what particular aspect of policy or theory that you think is woke is equivalent to fascism.
Agreed. Although I doubt UnHerd’s libertarian credentials – it’s more of a right wing echo chamber these days.
Define “right wing”.
Google “sealioning”
I think he defined it well enough – you just don’t want to listen probably as you’re a wokeist yourself
Define ‘Woman’
A 1981 song by John Lennon.
No, really, define ‘woman’
Adult female human being is the most common I can find. Which is a pretty solid definition and based on things like genitalia, chromozones etc.
‘Gender‘ describes those characteristics of women and men that are largely socially created, while ‘sex‘ encompasses those that are biologically determined.
So, In my view, someone’s sex could be female/woman (as defined by genitalia at birth, chromozones etc) but their gender could also be female/woman as defined by socially created characteristics.
Does that help? Appreciate you might disagree but more important would be to discuss whether we can work out ways of living together as a society that respects the rights and safety of both types of women.
One of your ‘both types of women’ is corporeal, and the other type is an immaterial opinion.
It is, you just don’t like people talking about it.
Critical Race Theory.
The belief that biological sex isn’t real or – the really funny version – isn’t binary – but there are an infinite number of “gender identities” that we all have to know and use or get fired from our jobs.
Cancel culture.
“Trigger warnings” and “safe spaces”.
The attempt to indoctrinate young schoolchildren to believe all the above.
It is all real, and it is exactly as described in the article – a nasty, intolerant and crazy religion that a fanatical minority are trying to force on everyone else.
Cancel culture is one issue. Critical Race Theory is another. Indoctrination of children a third.
Each merits discussion, not banning discussion by students and academics because they fall under someone’s understanding of woke – which is what the article is proposing.
They are not all completely separate, unrelated issues, as you would like us to believe.
A person can be cancelled – that is, fired from their job and subject to a campaign of abuse – either for questioning the beliefs of CRT or of “transgender” activists.
All part of the same thing, see?
The beliefs that are enforced by cancellation are the the same ones that are being pushed on children in schools, against the wishes of their parents.
See?
And these beliefs all come from the same place, and are pushed by the same people: Middle-class, mostly but not exclusively white, left-wing staff and current or former students of university humanities & “social science” departments.
See, there is a connection!
And the article is not proposing to ban any discussion of anything. Banning discussion is what they woke people want to do, so I understand there may be a bit of projection going on here.
There is no need to ban discussion of the ideas of the fanatics, because these ideas are so obviously mad and evil that they only ever have minority support. The state just needs to stop actively supporting them – to stop funding the madrassas of hatred, ban any kind of racial discrimination, to stop pretending that men can become women and to legally enforce freedom of speech.
You seem to be projecting – no one is suggesting discussion should be banned
‘Woke must be cancelled. By firm government.’
May i introduce you to the woke principle of intersekshunalism. Those issues are interrelated, they don’t exist in a vacuum but are aligned to a central dogma.
“Discussion” as in analysing / dissecting the phenomenon – like we discuss flatearthism or creationism -, yes. Discussion of whether they merit legitimacy, no. Same way as we all agree that flatearthism merits no legitimacy.
I don’t understand why you would use the ideology of your “woke” opponents – intersectionalism – to support your own argument. Mark B’s point is that it is possible to subscribe to some of these views without necessarily buying into the whole package. You seem to be agreeing with the intersectionalists; I thought they were the ones you were arguing against?
Not quite sure you ever heard of the commonly used stylistic tools called irony, mockery and such. I chose the word “intersectionalism’ (to describe multiple phenomena existing along the same axis), because i deduced it’s a term Bridgeford would be intimately familiar with. In what parallel universe does it translate to “agreeing with the intersectionalists” is beyond me.
Let’s have a quick recap on our debate so far:
(1) GR’s article denounced “wokeism” without defining what he meant.
(2) MB argued that we can’t debate an undefined entity and suggested it would be better to debate specific issues.
(3) You refuse to engage with specific “woke” ideas on the grounds of intersectionalism (a concept nobody was previously arguing for). This is the essence of a straw man argument.
(4) I asked for specific policies to which laws you wish to see changed. These are largely about hate speech – a topic on which I do have an opinion (briefly that free speech is important but is not without consequences, and all forms of racism should be treated equally).
(5) Meanwhile, various other forum members seem obsessed by gender – a topic on which I am neutral (no pun intended).
This shows how unhelpful the “woke” label is – it means different things to different people. Honestly, we could all save a lot of time if Gareth, Laurence, Toby etc wrote articles where they said what they meant instead of – ironically – censoring themselves and using these dog whistle words.
THIS!
The government doesn’t need to – it just needs to ensure that Universities uphold the protection of freedom of speech:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/61/section/43
And so it will punish universities and institutions that do not adhere to it.
It quacks like a duck.
Wokeism could be defined as the enjoyment of power without having to take responsibility for the consequences. A recent example was a railway union rep who decided to report a train driver for saying ;good afternoon ladies & gentlemen’. This rep does not identify as either a lady or gentleman , so claimed they could ignore any message. If the message was ‘Ladies and Gentlemen we have an emergency be ready to leave the train’-would this rep have stayed in their seat-obviously not? They are a troublemaker who has now caught the railway up in the trivia of correct pronouns to satisfy their ego.This type of person seem to have infiltrated every walk of life hampering its smooth running.
That’s obviously a ludicrous situation. There are idiots and unnecessary troublemakers everywhere and some of them use gender identity to make silly points. But surely you’re not proposing that university funding should be withheld because of this railway union rep? I’m asking for a discussion of ideas that can be defined so that discussion can take place rather than a series of examples.
So why apologise to them/it or whoever-why not just tell them to stop wasting time? Because they are afraid as this person now has the law on their side.The law itself is woke-some judges must think they are appearing in Monty Python the judgements they make.
This was a perfect example of a non-story that was made into a big issue by the right wing press, which satisfied the ego of the original complainant and also fuelled the fear and outrage of those who think the pronoun police are coming to get them.
Well, wokeism can be defined as anything the right want it to – and that is precisely why it is such a dangerous term. It is a pejorative label used to shut down any progressive idea or thought. Censorship of this type has no place in a free society, and Roberts should know better.
No. It is a label the woke gave to themselves, and now desperately try to disown it. Had you read The Guardian as studiously as i do, you’d now it was only 2 – 3 years ago that the word “woke” was preached multiple times a day in multiple articles, as something everybody shall aspire to be.
The New Discources definition of Woke:
Able to find oppression everywhere, even where it doesn’t exist.
It would take me time and effort to work out a definition of ‘bicycle’.
And it would be a waste of time for readers to ponder my definition and wonder why I had included it.
Or I could just write ‘bicycle’, and everyone knows what I mean.
^ This, exactly.
I find your refusal to mention the existence of unicycles or tricycles, is further evidence of our structurally anti-cycle culture and symptomatic of the hatred cycle exclusionary radical folk (CERF’s) like the hateful people here at unherd platform. CYCLES ,clap, ARE, clap, A, clap, SPECTRUM. And when a cycle self identifies as a Motorcycle, then it is one, you motorphobe, THIS, clap, IS, clap, A, clap, SIMPLE, clap, BINARY, trap.
Educate yourself A Bloke, it not up to marginalised peddlers of power to do this for you.
I ride a kickscooter*, and i resent the oppressive jackboot of you chain & pedal supremacists.
(*Adult-size all-terrain Yedoo, it’s brilliant. Much more delightful than any bicycle i ever rode.)
your love of the Yedoo outs you as autoscooterphile and as such you don’t actually exist and are not part of our peddlequity movement.
Bike Lights Matter !
How very dare you! The Yedoo is analogue (you have to kick it along), not an autoscooter. Electric scooters are rubbish; only good for uphill but useless elsewhere.
You forgot the penny farthing.
Penny Farthings were only available to men over 12 feet tall who could lift their legs high enough over the front wheel to mount them as such these so called bikes are in fact agents of the patriarchy. If you see one you must claw out your own eyeballs or you too will be infected with patriarchy. ( or you’ll be looking at a hipster in which case you should probably still gouge out your eyes)
I’m glad that someone is taking this seriously
‘a vehicle consisting of two wheels held in a frame one behind the other, propelled by pedals and steered with handlebars attached to the front wheel’ – not so hard.
It contains reference to real things – wheels, frame, pedals, handlebars. Woke is used to describe ideas – if you don’t define the ideas you consider woke then they can’t be discussed
but your description is meaningless as wheels, frames & pedals are all social constructs relating to power.
Cars have wheels, therefore bikes are cars.
Pictures have frames, therefore bikes are pictures.
Organs have pedals, therefore bikes are musical instruments.
i actually like your contrarian comments, this place needs, debate, discussion and disagreement. I dont want this site to turn into The Guardain for people who hate The Guaradin
As an avid Guardian reader myself, i resent your resentment of papers which turn into the likes of the The Guardian for people who hate The Guardian. Us Guardian haters’ visceral hatred of and morbid curiosity in the Guardian is what brings all the precious clicks for The Guardian’s online edition. Plus you cannot just disregard seminal titles such as “Into The Dystopian World Of Beatrix Potter” (penned with a straight face by a columnist called Kathryn Hughes, in 2016. Still a peakholder to me.)
“i resent your resentment” I’m going to steal that line. On that thought of stealing my favourite Gauridan article is “Barbecue is an American tradition – of enslaved Africans and Native Americans”, if you are white and applying heat to food you are a culturally appropriating white supremacist.
I’ll look out the Beatrix Potter one, to be fair at least writing keeps them in doors and away from others where they could do real damage.
I endorse you culturally appropriating my line.
And your definition of ‘woman’?
Lol, superb
Comment sections across multiple media keep casting doubt on ‘woke’ and whether it is just a made-up rightwing label. It’s almost like it’s a retrenchment for a word that started as a self-description and crops up in academic journals from 2017 (eg GenForward survey) – almost as a counter-reaction to the ‘snowflake’ criticism.
“To be woke is not just a political ideology,
It is an unretractable existence
A contradictory remedy of healing and pain.
The cultivation of a deep and necessary consciousness of survival
that slices white patriarchal supremacy and wounds the heart
— opening minds.
Our eyes never shut. Our voices never seize.
We are courageous, we are fierce, we are exhausted.
And yet we persist. We are Alive. We are here.
We are WOKE”
(Poem at the introduction of Ashlee, Zamora, Karikari “We are woke: A Collaborative Critical Autoethnography of Three ‘Womxn’ of Color Graduate Students in Higher Education” – International Journal of Multicultural Education 2017)
” As ‘wokeism’ isn’t defined”
Well, if you had been paying attention to the Guardian about 3-4 years ago you would have found that every other word was “woke” this and “woke” that, as its exponents exploring the unwholesome exponential expansion of ‘Wokeism’.
However, these days ‘woke/wokeism’ appears to have been weaponised by the ‘unwoke’ and the formerly ‘woke’ – who had previously weaponised it – appear to be denying that they ever had anything to do with ‘wokeism, wokery, the woke or the wonderful world of wokedom’ to the point that: “I have nothing to do with Wokeism” has now become the new “I’m-not-a-racist-but” cry of indignation from the formerly – but no longer – ‘woke’.
I trust that this helps.
Why not suggest your own definition of “wokeism”, then we could enjoy debating it with you?
Of course a central attribute of wokeism is to constantly move its own goalposts, so as to evade both scrutiny and responsibility for the consequences of its beliefs as they impact sinners and non-believers. I’ve noticed in my interactions with woke friends there is a constant stream of “what do you mean by that?” from them, but an unwillingness (or I suspect complete inability) to provide their own definitions of what they believe.
And I imagine an inability to rationally discuss any of their mad theories without resorting to name calling
100% of the time, yes, usually instantaneous upset, and usually accompanied by imagining what they believe I AM (fat old white gammon nazi) and attacking that, rather than any engagement with the ideas or points I propose.
They really are so intellectually stunted that it’s breathtaking.
Isn’t calling people woke name calling?
Woke is a name they gave to themselves. They were calling themselves ‘woke’ long before we took up the word, and now they want to disown it for some reason….
I think you’re describing the Socratic method of debate in your example.
I’m not defining woke because it’s not my term. If you want to debate it we need to define it and that will, hopefully lead to discussion of issues rather than terms.
Wokeism is like a giraffe. Difficult to define, but you recognise one when you see it.
Wokeism is something that right wingers who spend too much time on the internet bang on about.No one else has a clue what it is or means.
I’m not a right winger and know what it means
exactly what a right winger would say.
theres only one way to be sure, if you float your a rightwinger and if you don’t then you were just a heavier rightwinger
Don’t give up the day job
Ima slim rightwinger and i can float and sink, according to which i want to do when i’m in water. I wasn’t a rightwinger until the central narrative swung to the left. Now i find myself slightly to the right of Marie Antoinette.
ah but we Woke have a test for you too, Johannes , if you weigh the same as a duck …your a witch… i mean right winger. And you’ll suffer the same fate you will be confined to a safe space at the centre of a bonfire where your evil eye wont be able to cast Trumpian spells on our diverse, inclusive and mostly peaceful, crowd of torch wielding cultists… I mean Guardian columnists not cultists, just a Freudian slip.
You would agree then, that there aren’t +99 genders, biological sex isn’t a social construct, 2 + 2 = 4 and people aren’t all equal in ability. Good to know.
Perhaps you adopt your beliefs en masse in this way. That’s certainly not how I make my mind up about things. The assumption behind the “woke” label is that liberal/left leaning people are incapable of reasoning for themselves on an issue by issue basis – a helpful idea to propagate if you are partisan and want to undermine ANY future proposal from such people, regardless of its merit.
No wokerati always assume their opponents ”Are Conservatives” well Sometimes I am well to left of Starmer …but nearer to SDP ,never limp dim…
You sound devastatingly uninformed about current issues. May i introduce you to the wide array of woke dogma, such as Critical Race Theory, “white supremacism”, gender theories, “white privilege”, decolonisation (of cultural institutions etc.), “equity”, “hate speech / hate crime”, etc. etc. etc.
I also suggest you read the many articles published cca. 3 – 4 years ago in The Guardian self-identifying wokery, back in the day when they proudly owned and disseminated the titular term they desperately try to disown now.
How about: left-wing illiberalism masquerading as progressivism.
Being contary again? Is this your natural instinct or a calculated manner to be deliberately obtuse? If you have a point lay it out so we can debate it reasonably.
My point is that saying woke is bad Is not addressing the question of why people think woke is bad and saying ‘all wokes are X, Y or Z’ also doesn’t address what is bad.
If I say I think wearing seat belts saves lives and you disagree we can talk about evidence, look at the consequences of making it a legally enforceable requirement and whether that is ethical and so on. If I say wearing seat belts saves lives and you say that’s woke nonsense where do we go in terms of learning?
Really? Do you think it is a question? Shall we start addressing questions such as “why people think excrement smells bad”, or “why people think h¡tler was wrong”, or “why is rain wet” now?
I notice you try hard in every comment of yours to minimise wokery’s impact, as if it was just a silliness of a few bumbling student activists and not the aggressive power grab it is.
It’s the Motte and Bailey fallacy, ‘oh it’s only a few ideas, nothing to get worked up about’. Susannah’s right, he’s being deliberately obtuse.
When Alan Sokal described Post-modernism as “fashionable nonsense”, he was being too kind, it’s just nonsense.
The problem with new ideologies is that they are difficult to define at first. As far as I can tell Wokeism is a neo-fascist ideology masquerading as a civil rights movement – a form of ‘peasant’ management, if you will. Its proponents prey on and profit off the naïveté of those with a strong inclination to ‘do good’ or who want to be perceived as such.