Left-Wing Does NOT Mean Woke - Susan Neiman

- VIDEO NOTES

- TIMESTAMPS

0:00 What does it mean to be woke?
11:44 If woke isn’t left, what is it?
16:10 Where does woke go wrong?
21:20 Reducing identity to race and sex
31:12 What about class?
44.28 When we need to look through the lens of race or sex
46:55 Policing language
48:41 How to fix the left

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[Stephp]

The camera setup makes it seems like Alex is a giant.

[MorningtonCrescent]

And for the Americans watching, 'liberal' does not mean Left.

[christopherflux]

Empty performative social justice is an issue, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue actual social justice.

[MrHatsuka]

Your podcasts are quickly becoming the highlight of my week. Thank you Alex!

[epicphailure]

Woke is just a common buzzword used solely in the Western culture war.

[Julienpotato]

Hi Alex, I appreciate you engaging with this topic but I'm a little shocked at this interview.

I feel Susan made some wild claims here about Woke being akin to right-wing, reactionary thought and that it espouses "the only people you can have genuine connections to are members of your own tribe" which went unchallenged. When pushed to define Woke you let slide her responses that the "concept is incoherent,  it can't be defined" and that it's "a total confusion between emotion and reasoning" which seem incredibly dismissive and dodge defining one of the key terms in her book. Susan's anecdote of responding to German journalists "you can find them in any newspaper any day, this is boring to list them" suggests there is an existing discourse regarding her unclear definitions and lack of examples.

The definitions of left-wing and liberalism at the start also seem muddled, where she often appears to use the terms interchangeably. If I can follow her thought process then Susan defines the collective left and liberalism as championing 'Universalism, Justice and Progress' while only socialists (like her) also include social rights as a basic human right. To me, these both sound like shades of liberalism if you're not exploring the social ownership of production to some degree. Her use of terms like the 'real' left also left me perplexed.

The questioning and clarifications were better in the second half where class was discussed but Susan still dropped some real clangers which went unexamined. Comments like Woke promoting "a deep distrust or even a rejection of the idea of progress no matter how it's played" and that it encourages us to "deny common sense in ways we can reliably measure" make me wonder how much her and Jordan Peterson would get along if put in a room together.

I hope this critique is taken in good faith and not an expectation of perfection. I was just taken aback by the lack of push back on what I perceived as some pretty contentious ideas (on what is potentially quite an interesting topic). Thanks for all the engaging content, keep up the great work in future!

[kamishin]

There is a word I learned in my university. It's called the empty signifier or floating signifier. Basically what is "christianity"? What is the "left"? What is the "right"? What is "wokeism"? Or for an popular example: what makes a sandwich? Ask different people and you get slightly different answers, sometimes completly different answers. It's like the term doesn't mean anything by itself, but is associated with other words which give it "power". When it comes to a group of people like "the left" or "the right" or "the woke", people sometimes forget that these groups by itself can not be a single actor, but instead constist of many different actors with many different beliefs which sometimes contradict each other. So you cannot just say "the woke wants this" or "the woke wants that". But in exchange you also can't say "christianity does this" or "christianity does that" (I am oversimplifying, so pardon me if I got something a little bit wrong)

[HenryThree]

It seems that she is imposing certain restrictions on her own speech in order to avoid being associated with the right-wing strain of anti-wokeism, but these restrictions often seem to make it difficult for her to clearly articulate her thoughts.

[alexmayorov]

I don’t think she answered most of Alex’s questions

[blackmichael]

The case is not that we must never talk about minority identities at all. It's that identity has been crazily over-emphasized in left discourse, at the expense of class, and it's time to return to class, and class analyses.

[madjarov]

1:13 "I'm not a creature of the right, I'm a socialist and I refuse to talk to right-wingers."
4:49 "The view that you can only have genuine connections with your own tribe is a very right-wing thought."

[raymk]

Alex: "Susan Neiman, welcome to Within Reason."


















Susan: "Glad to be down here."
👁👄👁

[ReclusiveAshta]

6:22 "The right tends to call any claim for human rights just about power".

Yeah, that's because the core principle of leftism is about furthering equality, and where does inequality come from? It comes from power imbalances.

Susan, your whole political ideology is about rectifying power imbalances, and you're telling me it's not about power?

[ballisticfish]

I feel Alex could have challenged or questioned her a bit more in this. She brought up some pretty questionable points

[MarkCornelissen]

For many nowaydays not being hypocrite is valued more than actually trying to be a good person for others

[JudoP_slinging]

I think we need more precise language than 'woke'. To many of the broader left, 'woke' is simply someone who not racist/sexist etc, or just a made up culture war term to denigrate the left generally.

Right now there's a whole raft of related issues on the progressive left which have all fallen under the umbrella of 'woke'. Namely, a heavy focus on immutable group identities (particularly oppressor/oppressed dynamics), deep intolerance of opposing viewpoints and generally a rejection of liberal principles in the name of equity. What are the core principles or beliefs that these behaviours are predicated on? I think the oppressor/oppressed dynamics are key to this. Once you see the world fundamentally as a battle between oppressing and oppressed groups, you can feel justified in breaking liberal norms that govern civil discourse as well as tarring people with their group identities. I think this results in much of the unpleasantness seen from the left.

There is a place for looking *carefully* at inequity across groups, we should not turn away from compelling evidence of bigotry. However, it should be balanced with a view for individual fairness and rights on one hand, and logic, evidence and reason on the other- which is definitely not what happens today.

[zombilif]

Her thought align so much with mine! Great interview <3

[wolfegaming]

Alex, at 45:12 Susan mentioned it’s crucial for white people to read some books by authors from other ethnicities and try to understand their views. It’s been a while since you gave a book recommendations video. Could we get a book recommendations 2024 list? I’d love to hear what you, and your guests, recommend to deal with this day and age.

[winterphilosophy]

5:15 Tribalism is not a right wing thing. It's the survival stratgy. It includes cooperating with new and unknown people.

I hate when poeple politizice science.

[aristotlespupil]

I find this whole Left/Right thinking unhelpfull. It leads to thinking in stereotypes; placing everything positive in your own team and all negatives in the other's team. As if there are only two lenses through which we can see the world. This lady does this as well, for example stating that 'distinguishing justice from power' is a Left thing. Really? Consider CRT: there is no justice, just majority groups using power to suppress minority groups. We should approach problems with evidence, logic and reasoning. What worked and didn't work in the past or in other countries. Not starting with how would the left or right view this. Stop thinking in stereotypes.