Defining Wokeism
"intolerant leftism" or something more intricate?
Variations of the term “woke” have been used in recent years by conservatives, moderates and liberals to describe the rise of far-left militant authoritarianism around the world, especially in northwestern countries. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis gave a speech in which he said his state is “where woke goes to die.” Elon Musk gave life to the terminology with the phrase “woke mind virus.” It’s one of those things that is easy to describe and you know it when you see it. But has it been clearly defined?
A couple weeks ago I was working on my recent essay “The woke revolution is devouring our children” and it occurred to me that as widely used as wokeism is, I have not seen it defined. It seemed to me that to effectively argue against wokeism and resist its destructive influence on the world, it needs to be clearly defined.
So on March 7 I sent an email to 30 of the top conservative publications and top cultural thinkers of our time, including Jordan Peterson, to ask if they have defined wokeism or if they would like to respond to my proposed definition or offer their own. I still think it’s an important undertaking.
Merriam Webster does not define “wokeism” but offers two definitions of “woke”:
1: aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)
2: politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme.
In my last essay I offered my proposal and quoted Dr. Michael Karson, who distinguishes “wokeness” from “wokeism.” To him, wokeness is a good thing equivalent to fairness, along the lines of Merriam Webster’s first definition of woke. In Psychology Today two years ago Karson defined wokeism as “a system of thought and behavior characterized by intolerance, policing the speech of others, and proving one’s own superiority by denouncing others.”
I also quoted Karol Markowicz from her recently published book “Stolen Youth.” She defined it as “leftism on steroids” that “demands subservience and conformity.”
Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” It’s also true the lie will enslave you.
I have not seen any use of the word woke that reflects Webster definition number 1 in an honest way. Racial equality and justice are necessities. That’s not what woke is. Whenever I’ve observed people claim to be woke and claim to pursue racial and social justice, they were propagating the opposite every time. They propagate racist lies in the name of anti-racism and promote injustice in the name of social justice. I started noticing that among Chicago activists 15 years, even from Christians in supposedly evangelical churches. So when something starts out with a lie, it shouldn’t be surprising it morphs into definition #2, the agenda to subjugate others in the name of that lie. Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” It’s also true the lie will enslave you.
Bethany Mandel cowrote “Stolen Youth” with Markowicz. On March 14 leftist podcast The Vanguard tweeted a video of Mandel talking about the harm wokeism is causing children but she struggled to define woke when asked to.
Mandel posted the video of her blank to Twitter and on March 15 the definitions started pouring in. She offered her definition in writing: “A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.”
She also pointed to a long thread about defining woke by Michael Young’s Wokal Distance page. If brevity and concision is part of the goal in defining a word, this was not achieved. But Young did a great job giving an exhaustive description of both the meaning of woke and the controversy over its meaning.
On March 16 Tim Pool tweeted, “Understanding what woke is is simple. It is the modern left/liberal culture created by algorithms on social media. It is characterized by cultlike adherence to rapidly changing ideological foundations rooted in various leftist theories. Its social zombism.” Again, a great description but not a definition.
Pool also referred to woke activism as a cult.
Viva Frei tweeted, “‘Woke’ is the ideology of insincere fabrication of victims & victimhood through manufactured oppression/discrimination, for the ultimate purpose of acquiring power through such victimhood, and attaining undeserved social standing through faux outrage and virtue-signaling.” We’re getting closer to a definition.
Dr. Peter Boghossian posted a video with his take. It’s insightful with many of its descriptions, which again fail to form a concise definition. And it falls short by introducing woke as “to become aware of.” That may be the etymology but has no connection to its contemporary meaning in terms of what it actually does. There is no pervasive ideology today that is more blinding to its adherents than wokeism. Boghossian’s valuable contribution is outlining four core beliefs of wokeism. They do seem accurate, but I’m not sure they are exhaustive.
Perhaps “intolerant liberalism” or “leftism that demands subservience and conformity” is the best way to concisely define wokeism, but I think it would be better to work in some of the other intricacies found in the many descriptions. The definitions over using narratives of group inequality to pursue equality of group outcome starts to become more intricate but any definition that fails to acknowledge the woke pursuit of supremacy rather than equality is missing what is actually being done in the name of wokeism. Group subjugation and group supremacy is the first essential to any accurate definition of wokeism, in my view. I have also been convinced of the need to work in the false victim narratives as part of it.
Racial equality and justice are necessities. That’s not what woke is.
Is there something even more intricate at work, deeper in the DNA of this woke mind virus? Is there something at work in the human mind of people who have taken up the woke cause that might even apply to far-right fascists as much as it does far-left communists? That’s the approach I took in my proposed definition, which is quite different than most others. And perhaps mine is like many of the others, just another description.
Last week I proposed the following definition of wokeism: The collective belief and action of a group of people who disregard nature, destroy the natural sensibilities of human beings and deny the natural rights of people in order to construct a new social order.
I covered the group dynamic. The false narrative aspect is sort of implicit in each of those three facets. I’m not sure if there is a way to cover it explicitly with this approach.
One reason to clearly define the woke revolution is to clearly state the objectives of an awake-not-woke counterrevolution.
Here I expand my proposed definition into a description:
Nature - Wokeism gives too little weight to the significance of the distinction between the two genders that nature demands. And it gives more weight to the significance of distinctions between skin colors than nature allows. It also fails to recognize the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality and their value in reproduction, raising children and perpetuating humanity. It also fails to respect the natural disparities in status among individuals that result from merit-based systems, as it pursues equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunities.
Natural sensibilities - Wokeism seeks the destruction of any restraint in the human mind that prevents it from achieving its new social order: including reason, custom, common sense, conscience, tradition, religion, God, natural moral law, or natural sensibilities. Using the influences of media, entertainment, government, commerce and education, it psychologically manipulates and/or coerces people into misguided compassion, reimagination, reorientation and reeducation, especially targeting children. And it uses a reinvention of language to change how people think.
Natural rights - In order to pursue it’s anti-science, anti-reason, anti-human, anti-God agenda, wokeism is willing to violate the God-given rights of individuals and force compliance using tyrannical and oppressive methods, including cancel culture in some cases and imprisonment in others.
Wokeism seeks to implement racist and sexist policies while falsely claiming to be fighting racism and sexism. It seeks to discriminate against people of faith in the name of fighting anti-LGBT discrimination. It treats people unfairly while claiming to be motivated to treat people fairly. And it violates women’s rights in the name of women’s rights.
I would define political correctness as the subjective political or social determination something is true and must not be debated when it is either objectively false or a matter of opinion reasonable people can debate. Wokeism uses cancel culture or government force to ensure compliance with political correctness. Or it is political correctness on meth.
And so I would see the objectives of an awake-not-woke counterrevolution to be reestablishing nature, science, reason, natural sensibilities and natural rights as guiding lights in our society, avoiding the cancel culture and other fascistic tactics of the woke revolution while doing so - using legislation in limited circumstances such as to protect children.
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