Wokeism

#wokeism #cancelculture #woke #cosmicskeptic #carefreewandering #douglasmurray #winstonmarshall #piersmorgan

Wokeism? What is it? Is it a force for good, for bad? Is it political correctness gone mad? Is it really everywhere? Or is it a red-herring? A New MccArthyism? Puritanical? Cancel Culture? Dogmatic?

This idea of being woke – of wokeism – appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Does it have a history? What’s going on under the surface? When you strip away the noise.

We’ll look at the history of the term, how its related to political correctness, ask whether it goes back further, before thinking about what I’ll describe as the broadening of the public sphere, and the cancel culture debate.

After surveying the history, I look at three quick case studies: @carefreewandering @CosmicSkeptic and Winston Marshall from Mumford and Sons

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Sources:

Geoffrey Hughes, Political Correctness: A History of Semantics and Culture

Angela Nagel, Kill All Normies

P. Bourdieu, Dinstinctions

Then & Now, Bourdieu

Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Natalie Coulter & Kristine Moruzi (2020): Woke girls: from TheGirl’sRealm to TeenVogue, Feminist Media Studies

Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere

Tom Nicholas, Whose Afraid of the Online Mob?

Credits:

[hpalpha]

the terms "woke" and "redpilled" originally had the exact same meaning (being aware of the inconvenient truth about society), but depending on who adopted the terms their meanings changed into mocking insults

[giniwelle]

Maybe true wokeism is the friends we made along the way.

[chewygal]

Conversation has disappeared and now all I see is everyone raging and reacting. I don't think people should be canceled, these incidents should be seen as a teachable moment. We need to sit down with each other and have a conversation and listen to each other.

[Jimdixon]

I can’t believe the English cancelled Joan of Arc by burning her at the stake. That’s one campus debate that went wrong.

[DoctorZomboo]

Watching this one year later and it's only been getting worse and more confusingly used! I saw a menopause awareness campaign labelled as "woke" the other day!

[penjorebhutia]

While I agree with the origin of wokeism relating to the habermasian concept of 'public sphere' but the fact is that wokeism has its limitations. Wokeism as taking place currently, has become a form of performative act, a trend. That's why all these multinationals who don't give a shit about minorities or transgender people, will be so eager to co-opt the rhetoric of pride and diversity. Amazon can play the woke rhetoric of racial diversity, all the while destroying union efforts by its own employees, the most vulnerable of whom are the racial minorities themselves. In short, the problem with wokeism is that its superficial and not honest regarding the problems and its solutions.

[stephenbedford]

I used to think 'woke' was a state you entered after finishing sleeping for the night. Now I'm just confused...

[Songriquole]

The passage on Goerg Moeller is odd, given that it's preceded by a bit which mostly agrees with his analysis, the bit on political ideas, moral stances, being part of social mechanisms much like those ruing fashion, meaning it's part of a performance. Your analysis and that of Moeller largely overlap in this sense, with the bourdieusian (if that's a word) perspective. Of course you focus on Moeller's claim on civil religion, but this claim he's making is supported by this bourdieusian/sociological analysis of political ideas also being performances, appearances presented to the public sphere. To me it never seemed like Moeller was critizing wokeism by punching down (especially given he makes the same critique about conservatives - in this sense he'd be punching "up" as well, if he was punching at all).

[intellectually_lazy]

sometimes i feel like the people who told me i was wrong for doing or saying shitty things helped me to become a better person

[time]

I think wokeism has been misinterpreted and turn into a conspiracy theory by the right wing media. They're putting out certain videos and news outlets targetting specific groups and brainwashing the crowd and manipulating with their emotions into thinking that wokeism is a serious problem amongst all others. A clear example of this is the Libs of Tiktok. Everyone is getting blue-pilled thinking that gender inequality is not real, they think what's happening in America and Europe is also happening in the rest of the world, they're so short sighted and live in their little ignorant worlds. They're highlighting wokeism and ignoring other real problems like gun laws etc.

[dionysianapollomarx]

Interpreting Moeller as bizarre by conflating his comparison of wokeism and religion to far right assertions ignores a religious side to things. Even Zizek does this with ideology. It's astonishing how you lump his analysis with the right for that. Sloppiest part. First time I saw no nuance in a pretty important part of one of your videos. And, the case studies are lacking as well.

[garysantos]

“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
Any attack on intellectual liberty, and on the concept of objective truth, threatens, in the long run, every department of thought.”
–George Orwell

[burlbird]

22:35 "unapologetically me, whatever that means"
Here is the crux of your problem with Moeller and the problem with you "interpretation" of Moeller's argument - you not only misconstrued his argument, you did it on purpose, since he spent a good portion of the video pointing out the origin of this "unapologetically me" nonsense in a CIA recruitment video.
Based on your (deliberate mis)representation it would seem like HE is the originator of that "unapologetically me" nonsense.
This is so cringy, man.

[MichaelGreenOfficial]

Regardless of backlash, people losing their jobs for having opinions outside of the twitter minority, is unacceptable.

[jeromewright]

We are all Woke to our own injustices. Being Truely Woke is to be aware of the injustices others suffer.

[SeekingApatheia]

Your interpretation of Moeller is far more "bizarre" than anything he said.

[lordtugboat]

I've been such a huge admirer of your channel ever since you put out your video on Derrida/post structuralism, and (back when I had the funds), supported you on Patreon. This is the first time I've seen you post a video that didn't engage with the arguments being critiqued. I don't know who two out of the three of YouTubers being criticized, but I did watch the carefree wandering video and nowhere in this did you engage the main problem with wokeness, as he sees it--it's that it's a language game that anyone can perform.

The CIA example was used to point out that this language game is being used to gloss over an institution that has been responsible for untold atrocities that should make any leftist feel compelled to oppose it--but instead, by associating itself with this woman who checks all the right identity boxes, the CIA gets a pass.

An example from American politics is when Bernie Sanders was competing with Hilary Clinton for the Democratic nomination and a big part of his platform was to break up the big banks. Hilary critiqued this by saying, "if we broke up the big banks tomorrow, would that end racism? Would it end transphobia?" She received huge applause for this, but ultimately, it was used by right wing media outlets to tear her apart, so not only did this empty posturing undermine the true leftist (Bernie) in the short run, but in the long run, it helped undermine her own viability as a candidate as well.

[alecward]

While I broadly agree with your analysis, I would love for you to dig deeper on the concept of "wokeism as religion." Here you posit it as a pejorative charge made by reactionaries to imply dogmatic, insular thinking - and that's true. But if we put those negative perceptions aside, there is something valid to the idea that people in an increasingly atheist society are finding in social justice communities many of the same benefits of religion: e.g. community, shared morality, and even some ritualistic behavior. Acknowledging this does not detract from the necessity or urgency of social justice goals.

[Uncivilize]

I call BS. Censorship is real and a real threat to society.

[abrr]

As someone who lived through the 90's, I can catagorically say, that we are not free er to say what we want, as certain topics and opinions have been made, either tabo, or extremely risky, and in some cases outright criminalized on the basis of someones emotional reaction to what has been said.

Gas lighting, faulse equivilencies, morral grand standing, straw manning and accusations of bigotry have taken the place of rational debate. While censorship has risen dramatically.
Opposing political opinions no longer get together in a room to discuss the topic to determine who'se right any more, but instead attempted to "win" the arugment.
Reguardless of who started this trend, the result is that both sides now errect straw men to stand in for an opposing point of view who see no point in turning up to be insulted, ignored and shouted over.

The fact that our platforms have a bigger reach, does not mean we have more or better freedom to speak and be heard. Especially if those platforms direct you into an empty room.