Wokeness is the catch-all term for everything concerned with Social Justice Ideology (SoJI), Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Intersectionality. In other words, wokeness is obsessed with power and the dynamics of power between different identity groups. Specifically of interest to wokeness is how dominant identity groups (e.g. straight, white “cis-gender,” males) – often referred to by woke ideology, as ‘the system‘ or ‘the patriarchy‘ – impose their norms and values on other groups in society. This is often called the ‘domestication‘ of minority/non-dominant groups – effectively marginalizing these groups to the peripheries of societal interaction and preventing them from contributing their unique “knowledges” and lived experiences.
This interplay between dominant and non-dominant groups (dominance hierarchies), according to the narrative of woke ideology, are often referred to as the ‘erasing, silencing or de-centering of intersectional (queer-, black-, female-, homosexual-…) bodies/experiences/performative paradigms – in short: dominance hierarchies are inescapably oppressive
Therefore, the goal/praxis of wokeness is to remedy this disparity enshrined in it’s ideological narrative of society, by:
- Bringing awareness and empathy to ‘ways of being’ that differs from the societal status quo as enforced by- and serving as powerbase for the dominant identity groups (‘the system’ or ‘the patriarchy’)
- Calling out and deconstructing (socio-political and economic) systems of historic and contemporary oppression (both real and perceived)
- Advocating for- and demanding restorative justice, and reconstructing (socio-political and economic) systems on the basis of social equity (equality of outcome; see also radical egalitarianism).
The great challenge for the woke program are the paradoxes created by its own process/progress:
In order to bring “awareness and empathy to ‘ways of being’ that differs from the societal status quo” and in “advocating for restorative justice”, it is necessary to platform, give voice to- and center (representationalism) intersectional identities and to de-platform, silence and de-center dominant identities – effectively creating a new status quo, as well as a newly manufactured, reversed dominant-marginalized power dynamic (a new dominance hierarchy).
Also, in “calling out and deconstructing systems of historic and contemporary oppression” new systems of oppression needs to be put in it’s place – as Ibram X. Kendi frames it in his highly regarded and influential book, How to be an antiracist (p.13): “The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
At some stage the woke project will necessarily produce a new system of oppression and marginalization in which a new set of norms and values will be imposed for the purpose of domesticating/re-educating previously advantaged dominance groups.
Where the paradox of the woke enterprise thus slips in is in the progressivism of it’s philosophical moorings – as the Brazilian philosopher, Paulo Freire, argued about the struggle for social justice and liberation: “The revolution is a permanent process. It is an ongoing task to which we must commit ourselves anew each day. Our commitment to the revolution must be not only political, but also ethical and moral. We must be constantly vigilant and critical of the ways in which our own actions and beliefs perpetuate the very structures of oppression we seek to dismantle.”
In other words, woke culture can never go too far, for it is by nature a perpetual endeavor – which also means that it can never go far enough – the moment new systems with codified norms and values manifest themselves they inevitably become the status quo (in political speak, they become ‘right-wing’) and with that they must be considered oppressive, and the whole cycle of the woke enterprise begins again.
The outcome of this perpetual cycle of revolution may eventually lead one to conclude that the identification of oppressed and marginalized people becomes functionally arbitrary: theoretically one can intersectionalize society down to the level of the individual, as every person is, in some way or other, oppressed or marginalized within their own subjective experience (lived experience).
Case in point: the feminist enterprise of the 20th century was built on the notion of the oppression of women by a system that favored men – equity movements and programs have largely remedied this situation and in some cases have even reversed it – wokeness in the case of male-vs-female was ‘successful’; modern society today acknowledges and rewards strong self-determining women. In the 1990’s a new form of oppression was fought, that of heteronormativity that marginalized homosexual people – the LGB (Lesbian Gay Bisexual) community was born to advocate for their rights and visibility. After this the ‘T’ (transgender) was added to the LGB acronym to fight the oppressiveness of cis-normativity (cis-gender is the gender that corresponds to your biological sex), whereafter the ‘Q’ (queer/questioning) for people that do not conform to the gender binary, then the ‘I’ (intersex), the ‘A’ (asexual) and the ‘+’ to indicate the evolving nature of this acronym.
Interestingly, the addition of the ‘T’ and ‘Q’ to the woke project sparked an internal conflict with the feminists and ‘L’, ‘G’ and ‘B’. Why? Because the feminists and LGB endeavored for a long time to get rid of ‘gender stereotypes’ as they were deemed social constructs (e.g. that boys must be masculine, like blue and girls and play with toy cars; and girls must be feminine, like pink and boys and play with dolls) – being male and being female isn’t something that can be reduced to such ‘superficialities‘ they argued. Enter the ‘T’ and the ‘Q’ – gender itself is now a social construct; something cosmetic that can be put on or taken off based on subjective experience. Gender stereotypes are brought back into play: when boys act effeminate, play with dolls or like pink, gender ideology suggests that they must be trans (trapped in the wrong body). Trans ideology proclaims that men can become women (and visa versa) by virtue of claiming the status, and be able to partake in all the privileges and spaces women have struggled for years to acquire (e.g. Lea Thomas, Dylan Mulvaney). With this concession men can appropriate womanhood and be celebrated for it.
At this point in time (at the next turning of the woke cycle), women, who still endeavor for women’s rights as the feminists of the 1900’s have before them, are ridiculed and silenced as TERF’s (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists). Where once J.K Rowling was celebrated for her great success as a women in a man’s world with the writing of Harry Potter, for example, recently she has being boycotted for standing up for woman’s rights and spaces in opposition to the transgender movement.
There is a lot more to say about the woke movement (also it can be said with a lot more nuance: “not all…”). Let this suffice as an argument that the basic brand of wokeness can never go too far and thus have not gone far enough, based on it’s own fundamental values – the oppressed of today will become the oppressor of tomorrow and again be the victim of its own success the day after.
The woke movement will never be satisfied (such is the case with all forms of PRIDE) and will ever be the snake eating it’s own tail.
Di-lutions of Grand-err 