Some things just keep needing to be said
Iterative scepticism - one way through the fog of Americanised political theory culture
Were I hoping to land a job in a PR agency I wouldn't publish the following sentence.
There seems to be scant evidence that negative outcomes for certain groups in the 21st century are mostly caused by racism, misogyny, transphobia or generalised bigotry among the majority.
I can say it, though, because there's little risk of being penalised in any meaningful way for being sceptical about the pillars of Wokeism.
It's easy to openly affirm my belief in dimorphic sexuality and to reject gender as a fundamental quality of identity because it's unlikely to harm prospects for feeding myself and paying the bills.
This is a privileged place to be. A rare benefit of being oldish, having no dependent family and owning my home outright.
I can also be honest because it won't cause reputational damage to an employer who might receive complaints that Mike Hind publishes hate speech.
Yes. Another piece about Woke culture. But why?
Why does it matter to me enough to keep openly critiquing Wokeism?
The usual reasons people give for objecting to it revolve around the sanctimony, smugness and superiority which seems to empower the Wokeist base to feel fine about bullying people who don't agree.
Memes like this.
I also dislike the concept of white supremacy, which seems to underpin the racial dimension of the Great Awokening.
Not because the Wokeists are always saying that some racial groups are under threat from a pernicious undercurrent of white supremacy, but because I think the Wokeists are white supremacists. They just don't notice, because they're so busy being righteous.
Wokeism's central tenet that the fate of black people is entirely in the hands of white people is demeaning to its intended beneficiaries. As a non-racist this pisses me off endlessly.
The tic I personally find most egregious is the idea that black intellectuals who disavow Wokeism have 'internalised white supremacy'. Literally an argument that black intellectuals cannot think for themselves.
But this piece isn't about what's wrong with the Great Awokening. If you're new around here and you care enough to know how I arrived at this disdain for the academic Americanisation of the left, read this first.
There are many qualities to the wraithlike phenomenon of Wokeism that most of people reading this recognise;
The bullying, the grifting, the rational incoherence, the religious quality, the post-truthness, the social and economic incentives, the social and economic risks of not conforming.
That's why most of us keep our heads down and leave it to angry right wingers to make most of the running.
This creates a feedback loop which makes it more difficult for the rest of us to be honest.
If you're sceptical that men can actually be women simply by declaring themselves as such and it's mostly only the right who are daring to point out how ludicrous this is, there's the problem right there. You look right wing when you talk about the flaws in an ideology that only the right are happy to point out.
The real victims of Wokeism are not conservatives, who are building an entire infotainment ecosystem around it, or prominent progressive sceptics who make a living from writing and podcasting about Wokeist excesses.
The actual victims (apart from the supposed beneficiaries, who are encouraged to experience an endless doom loop of existential peril) are those who feel afraid to air the wrong views because they are most exposed to the culture.
The people who might lose friends or even jobs for questioning Wokeist doctrine. Ordinary people, across the social, political and professional spectrum.
That’s the overwhelming majority of people, one can reasonably infer, based on polling (US data here) (UK data here).
You'd never guess that radical 'progressives' are such a small minority, because they have succeeded so completely in capturing the culture. Not since the real Nazis did a fringe hold the majority in its thrall so effectively, is what I want to say, just for the sake of a nice rhetorical flourish. It might even be true.
Yes, but what to do about it?
People are always wringing their hands over this and asking 'but what can we do?'.
It would be nice if there was a glib answer to this. Along the lines of 'just talk, respectfully, calmly and bravely.'
But we know this is not going to happen, in a climate in which corporations and public sector employers are grasping the opportunities presented by a left which has forgotten what it's there for (remember better wages and conditions for everyone? How quaint that now seems).
So it's largely down to those of us who aren't exposed to the risk of 'cancellation'.
Not the rabid right. They can fight their own battles. Us 'normies'. Ordinary people.
It might even become a little easier, sooner than we might have thought a couple of years ago.
Yes, the tide seems to be turning, a bit
Every week now seems to bring scepticism about Wokeist excess a little more into the mainstream.
In Britain we recently had the spectacle of a very smart, soon-to-be-resigning Scottish First Minister struggling with a question about removing a male-bodied rapist from the female prison he wanted to serve his time in.
[Note: although there is no cost to me in 'misgendering' a man who wangles his way into a female prison it still feels slightly risky to do so, such is the pervasive power of Wokeist culture]
It doesn't get more mainstream than an ITV News reporter politely and persistently pressing Nicola Sturgeon on whether all trans women are really women. Or the fluffy Good Morning Britain show devoting 26 minutes to the incident.
And, over in the US, it doesn't get more mainstream than the New York Times at last resisting attempts to bully and suffocate writers who are finally producing good faith journalism on the complex issues arising around transgender health, by activists who demand absolute obeisance to their minority opinions.
NYT staffers have been forced out before by colleagues staging witch trials for wrongthink, but it seems that their latest efforts to drum out good journalists ran into a determined Executive Editor Joseph Kahn and Opinion Editor Kathleen Kingsbury, who were having none of it this time, replying:
“We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums”
Doubtless this will spawn happy clappy articles on the right celebrating the turning of the tide, but really this is nowhere near over.
We are, perhaps, somewhere near the crest of the Wokeist wave. Churchill's lovely not the beginning of the end, but maybe the end of the beginning moment. Maybe.
But Wokeism is part of the corporate infrastructure of western countries, as well as government and public sector institutions. The most that's likely to happen at this point is that it might become somewhat acceptable to question doctrine a little as long as you don't go too far.
But the culture is still firmly entrenched.
Try Googling about the NYT's pushback on the latest bullying. I don't know what results you'll get from the search terms 'new york times pushes back on open letter' but for me it's overwhelmingly results about how transphobic the NYT is becoming, according to various advocacy groups.
Google is almost never your friend, when it comes to balancing the claims of Wokeism with reality.
The role of search in maintaining narrative control was explored by Rarely Certain in more detail here.
Although there may be reasons for some optimism, where does it leave us right now?
Those of us who are at least risk of 'cancellation' perhaps have a duty to speak as freely and often as we can.
Call it 'iterative scepticism'.
Or setting an example that it's ok not to believe. That it doesn't make you a bigot or a hateful person.
What does that look like?
Noah Carl models it in his discussion of a recent report flatly claiming that racism is to blame for the apparently higher likelihood of black men to die in police custody, in England and Wales.
Not that everyone needs to start a blog about possible Wokeist reasoning errors. Carl did because he was drummed out of a Research Fellowship for doing the wrong kind of work with the wrong kind of people. So he is free to speak his mind.
But if you aren't going to be sacked or disinvited from dinner parties for doing so, quietly and respectfully opining that the popular narrative is not necessarily the correct one feels increasingly like a duty. At least, if you care about things like equality and reality.
I won't do the familiar craven disclaimer here about not being an ist of any kind. I'm a biological male animal, with a certain racial heritage, programmed by evolution, but with a neocortex too that helps me reflect on and overcome my basest impulses. If someone thinks I'm racist, bigoted, transphobic or hateful, that's their problem, not mine.
But, realising that most people really cannot afford to openly resist the narrative, does seem to place some responsibility on those of us who can.
This doesn't mean constantly posting snarky memes about Wokeism on your Facebook. It means quietly mentioning your misgivings. Especially the misgivings about potential harm caused to the supposed beneficiaries of the Great Awokening.
Iterative scepticism.
Nor does it mean sneering at those who go with the Woke flow, perhaps because they believe it's nice to be more caring and what could be nicer than being nicer anyway about minorities and proving how not a conservative you are into the bargain.
We might feel frustrated about the older people in particular, in our circles, who cravenly put their pronouns on LinkedIn, so that they're fitting in with the times. Someone they trust told them it was kinder not to cause stress to people who might not know with which gender they identify. What could be kinder than being kind? Maybe not using pronouns like that.
Don’t be rude. It won’t help. Just don't keep your mouth shut.
If you can't be harmed for holding reasonable, sceptical views on Woke tenets, keep talking.
Talk about the new DEI industrial complex that pays so well, promising a utopia that changes nothing in the material world.
Mention your discomfort that constantly affirming to black people that they can never succeed because all the white people are consciously or unconsciously working against their flourishing, is perhaps not instilling much confidence or hope and may instead be instilling an ambient vibe of grievance, victimhood and despair.
Those people who think that trans rights is simply a question of leaving people to live their way probably don't know about all the healthy breasts being removed by politically motivated doctors, the reproductive systems being rendered infertile, people being condemned to never having orgasms again and the lack of hard evidence that rendering these 'gender affirming' care services makes most teenagers involved any happier
These are real problems which are nowhere near to being settled (despite what activists and their professional medical outriders falsely insist) and so those of us who don't care about being labelled a bigot or transphobic arguably have a duty to keep mentioning the issue.
You'll be called a bigot. Get over it.
Be unafraid to question the ideology that insists that women are crushed by the patriarchy, that every unwanted pass by a man is an act of violence, that every biological difference in physicality or temperament is really a social construct designed to oppress them.
You'll be called a dinosaur or a misogynist (whether you're a man or a woman) and - amazingly - you'll survive this, unless it's going to get you sacked.
Challenge the claims that you hear, which don't ring true. Take the consequences.
People will feel upset and call you names. Get over that too.
There's often a complaint from the right that older white men (pale, stale males like me) are now the new oppressed class. I call bullshit on that too. No one is oppressing this older white man. Least of all the Woke, however much they may deplore his opinions.
In the end it's just about standing firm.
Many can't, because it's risky.
But some of us can. So let's do it. With less whingeing and a wealth of humility, compassion, respect and love for everyone.
Now, please join me in a rousing rendition of Kumbaya.
But, seriously, please stop saying 'you can't say that' and just say it, if you can.
We owe it to those who cant.
"This doesn't mean constantly posting snarky memes about Wokeism on your Facebook. It means quietly mentioning your misgivings. Especially the misgivings about potential harm caused to the supposed beneficiaries of the Great Awokening."
This passage is wise and bears emphasis and reiteration. Deploying cathartic righteousness tempts us all from time to time, but it is among the least persuasive modes. We don't want cultural warriors; we want conversations. We don't need to "win" arguments; we need to understand our fellow citizens and help them understand us.
Mike, This is spot on...one of your best pieces, really. It is actionable, sane, and relevant. Many thanks.