E Pluribus Wokeism

Member Monday has never shied away from difficult subjects and so it is here as we explore yet another looming fault line threatening the Unum called America. The very term Woke invites more heat than light, in part, due to the very vagueness of what it means, who is driving it, and what its goals are. This intro is meant to tee up the issue with a perspective that invites, indeed encourages, alternative views. The only qualifier, and it is a radical one: Think For Yourself.

At its root, the animating principle behind Wokeism – Critical Race Theory – is nothing new. A century ago a similar class conflict was defined in economic terms i.e. antagonism between the Proletariat – the working class – versus the Bourgeois – the oppressors, those with the capital who used it to exploit the Proletariat class which created economic value through their labor. The heart of the movement was essentially Marxist, dedicated to the violent overthrow of a capitalistic society and, along with it, the rejection of Bourgeois morality, religion, ideology, and nationalism (and in favor of international solidarity). It ultimately fizzled as effective labor laws, powerful trade unions, and overall economic prosperity largely dissipated the socio-economic stress needed to overthrow capitalistic society.

Something else was needed to drive the wedge. Enter Woke. We will discuss this ideology in terms of it being essentially a political movement. That said, no one could ever accuse Member Monday of minimizing what the movement purports to address – America’s sordid history when it comes to race –  starting with our inaugural session six years ago focusing on Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States. We shall stipulate such for purposes of our discussion. But maybe that’s not what the current movement is really about.

The discussion here is about whether Woke ideology might really be the application of identity politics to stir societal conflict (over cooperation) i.e. though it may wear the mask purporting redress historical wrongs, that mask may be covering an underlying agenda to foment conflict for the sake of conflict. A cynical view, perhaps, but given there are so many potential political identities out there – so many identities, so little time – one needs to really come to terms with the underlying dynamic. Otherwise, it’ll be just the same carnival, different costumes.

Let us have an honest discussion about the meaning of equity in this Orwellian world where the term no longer means equality, but payback – the idea of making the current generation pay for the alleged sins of those long past. A sharp distinction is in order: equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity. Equality of outcome was articulated by Ibram X. Kendi in his How To Be an Anti-Racist, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” The question of antiracist discrimination being the remedy is as fresh as the question of who will be the next nominee to the Supreme Court. 

Or, perhaps, we will address all the collateral damage arising from the grand experiment of redefining crime as a social construct. One gets the sense that a certain careerist constituency, indeed an apparatchik, is getting high on the sense of power as it engineers the lives of millions deemed less important than they are. The sentiment crosses traditional party lines. Even Bill Maher is apparently getting sick of cancel culture (Sick Of Cancel Culture).

Many have become genuinely unmoored as the phenomenon unfolds. That may be part of the program. We once discussed (MM 11/6/17) Gaslighting) a psychological phenomenon called gaslighting (a somewhat clunky gerund verb form of Gaslight -- a 1940s movie depicting a man set out to drive his wife into thinking she was going insane by means of manipulating her through the creation of a false reality) which describes any manipulation through willfully-induced disorientation. Might an entire society be so vulnerable?

In any case, Wokeism has become the default ideology, permeating universities, board rooms, and the ever-expanding apparatus of government. We will address how this came about and why it’s become such a threat to social cohesion. The prospect of revolution, engineered or not, brings with it the notion of counter revolution, whether in the streets or at the ballot box..

That’s the default line we’ll be addressing in this second of our series, E Pluribus Bellum.