In the past two years, I have talked a lot about how the 'woke vs anti-woke' debate has turned out, and why I think it was a bad thing that it turned out the way it did. I have become particularly concerned that the non-woke side isn't winning over the decisive center-left like it needs to. (I actually prefer 'non-woke' to 'anti-woke', because to frame it as a movement against something could sound like an invitation for the reactionaries to take over.)
The main problem here is that, woke vs non-woke has been framed as basically progressive vs reactionary, by both supporters of wokeism, and right-wing culture warriors alike. This is why Disney and Target have been labeled 'woke corporations'. In truth, they are just liberal corporations. Their stances might be too liberal for some people, but that doesn't make them woke. Calling Disney and Target 'woke corporations' conflates woke and plain-old liberal, which also implies the conflation of non-woke and anti-progressive. No wonder the non-woke position has had trouble attracting more support from the center-left, the part of the political spectrum that is most crucial for us to win. Center-leftists are moderates, they disagree with the divisive woke tactics and worldview, but they certainly aren't going to sign up to something they see as anti-progress or anti-social justice. This is why the woke vs non-woke debate needs to be reframed, urgently. It should be reframed as two competing visions of progress. The non-woke, practical vision of progress actually has much to offer.
To justify the non-woke vision of progress, it would also help to analyze the historical roots of wokeism, and where those ideas are likely to lead us to. Much has been said about how wokeism arose from the ideas of critical theorists like Marcuse and postmodern thinkers like Foucault. However, wokeism has a revolutionary zeal that Marcuse and Foucault did not share. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that wokeism is a revolutionary movement that was inspired by the philosophy of Marcuse and Foucault. That wokeism is revolutionary is because there were other, more revolutionary, influences on the 1960s-70s New Left that eventually gave rise to wokeism, particularly anarchism.
As I've argued before, wokeism is basically critical anarchism, i.e. an attempt to dismantle the status quo and all the institutions within it, via a program of relentless critique and deconstruction of every part of the status quo. The 'deconstruction' part is borrowed from academic postmodern philosophy, and is why woke theories are often described as postmodern. As you can see, there is nothing in wokeism that will make society better. Marcuse and Foucault were basically malcontents within the society they lived in, and sought to 'refuse' or resist going along with it. They did not come up with an actual program to make things better. The critical anarchist revolutionaries combined this negative worldview with postmodern deconstruction techniques, creating a very destructive program that aims to attack the status quo at all costs, without proposing anything better.
Now, let's look at the non-woke vision of progress. It is basically a continuation of the liberal-progressive politics that have brought us universal suffrage, civil rights, women's rights, LGBT rights and more. It has a strong track record of success, which is hard to argue against. What this means is that it has been repeatedly demonstrated to be very successful in bringing about positive change, in the context of Western society and culture. There really is no reason to give up on this positive vision, and embrace the nihilistic, destructive program of critical anarchism. Not if your goal is to make society better, and improve people's lives.
The Compassionate Case Against Postmodern Radicalism
Someone has to hold the postmodern radicals accountable for harming disadvantaged minorities
Let's start with the basics first: those on the radical postmodern left often like to say that they are intolerant of social injustice, implying that we moderates don't have a backbone. However, it is the practical results that matter, and the results of radical activism inspired by postmodern theory speak for themselves. The radicals have brought massive backlash to the communities and the causes they supposedly support, and enabled the rise of a very reactionary form of culture war politics. I believe they should be held accountable for the harm this has led to. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of the radicals' refusal to acknowledge this reality. If the radicals insist on refusing to change course in light of what's been happening in the past five years, I think we can fairly accuse them of having no compassion at all.
If only more progressive-minded people understood the goals of the postmodern critical theory worldview, and the implications of their approach, they would be a lot more concerned about it. The crits' approach doesn't bring any practical improvements to the lives of the people they say they want to help, because it is not supposed to do that. Instead, the crits' approach is about heightening the conflicts between supposed 'oppressor' and 'oppressed' groups in society, to demonstrate that the status quo is untenable, and also unreformable. Imagine this: if the lives of disadvantaged groups improved, wouldn't it lessen inter-group conflict in society, lessen the feeling of oppression, and demonstrate that the status quo is indeed reformable? The most committed crits certainly don't want this to happen. This is why their actions, from making unreasonable demands and refusing to compromise, to alienating large sections of society, are designed to make practical reform impossible. Only when reform is denied will there be ongoing, heightened conflict that destabilizes the existing system. To achieve this, the crits are essentially willing to throw long-suffering and vulnerable minorities under the bus. And most honest people on the far-left are clear that their plans for 'revolutionary change' won't happen for several decades at least. This effectively means that they are willing to condemn long-suffering and vulnerable minorities to heightened conflict and suffering for at least two generations. Think hard about this.
When a compassionate person, who wants to improve the lives of long-suffering people as soon as possible, begins to truly understand all this, they would naturally be overcome with a feeling of frustration, maybe even anger (as I certainly did a few years ago). However, the more useful thing to do would be to turn all this into motivation to take action, to end the crits' influence in progressive circles, by forcefully arguing against their harmful ideas and methods. The crits certainly aren't intolerant of social injustice. Instead, their actions show that they are clearly willing to see even more injustice happen, as long as it benefits their movement. On the other hand, us moderates, or practical progressives, aim to gradually improve things for long-suffering minorities, by a process of gradual reformism, with all the compromises that entails. While it might not be perfect, it would bring relief to people's lives as soon as possible, and gradually make things even better over time too. Anyone who understands that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good should understand the need to compromise in order to achieve results. This is why those who are truly compassionate, and hence truly don't want to see the prolongation of injustice and suffering, should be more than willing to make reasonable compromises to move things in a better direction.
Rebuilding the Sensible Center
Getting Old School Liberals On Board is the Key
In a healthy society, a practical progressivism and a moderate, thoughtful conservatism act to complement each other, so that moderate, useful reforms can be achieved, and social order and harmony can be maintained while gradually making things better for everyone. In this case, the progressive impulse seeks to improve things, particularly for previously overlooked, marginalized demographics, and the conservative input ensures that any reform would be practical rather than abstract, consistent with the spirit of long-standing traditions, and includes adequate compromise to satisfy the concerns of various stakeholders.
The problem with the Western political landscape right now is that, moderate, practical progressives are bullied into silence by hardline revolutionaries who want the total deconstruction of the status quo, and moderate, practical conservatives are bullied into silence by hardline reactionaries who want to turn back the clock, breaking long-standing rules and institutions if necessary. The extremists on both sides hold that it is weak to compromise, and want no less than total victory over the other side, and also over the moderate center. The dominance of the extremists and the silencing of the moderates makes compromise impossible to achieve, and leads to endless stalemate, frustration, and further polarization. The only way to get out of this situation is for moderates to reassert themselves, so that the healthy situation of practical progressives working together with moderate conservatives can be restored. Contrary to what the extremists say, it is actually the bravest thing to do to demand that everybody compromise. On the other hand, it would be an act of irresponsible cowardice for moderates on both sides to continue to let the extremists march forward unchecked.
To change things, we need to break the cycle of polarization, unwillingness to compromise, and hence further polarization somewhere. I believe the best place to start is with old school liberals. After all, things only started to become this way since postmodern critical theory began having mainstream influence in progressive politics. This is not to say that the reactionaries are not themselves as unwilling to compromise, and hence just as much a part of the problem. However, before the 'crits' came along, liberal progressivism was on a winning streak, and even many conservatives were softening their opposition to things like LGBT rights and a more secular politics. Some were even willing to accept some action on climate change. The reactionaries certainly didn't like any of this, but they were increasingly losing the argument to moderate conservatives. It wasn't until the crits sparked a backlash with their insistence on mainstreaming ideas from postmodern critical theory, and its attitude of refusing to compromise at all, that reactionaries began to win support and momentum. Right now, extreme reactionaries often argue within their own side of politics that, since the 'left' won't compromise, the 'right' shouldn't either, or else the 'left', in reference to the far-left postmodern-crit faction, would win everything. Like it or not, this argument has been picking up support on the right. The only way to put a stop to this is to bring back compromise on the progressive side of politics. This is the circuit breaker we need right now.
To win liberal, progressive-minded people back to the idea that compromise is good, we need to argue against the postmodern-critical worldview, which sees speech and discourse as power, and sees society as divided into 'oppressors' and 'oppressed' along multiple intersecting identity axes. This worldview inevitably leads to seeing those who disagree with you as evil, rather than just misguided. It also leads to seeing refusal to compromise as refusal to give into oppression and hence heroic, which is a wrong and dangerous idea. Instead, we need to bring back the old-school liberal view that refusing to compromise is either extreme, impractical or simply shooting yourself in the foot. To get progressive people to compromise for the sake of achieving practical reforms again, we need to comprehensively defeat the postmodern critical theory worldview in the marketplace of ideas.
If the argument for compromise is won on the 'progressive' side, it would also put pressure on the 'conservative' side of politics to start compromising again. When most progressives are clearly reasonable reformists who are willing to compromise, it would make uncompromising reactionaries look like the extremists they actually are. This would lead to the reactionaries losing ground, and moderate conservatives winning the arguments on the 'right' again, which would complete the restoration of the sensible center.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
Please also check out these two philosophy schools which provide very sophisticated critiques of the power structures etc that now control the entire world.
http://egs.edu
http://gcas.ie
How much actual political power does the dreaded woke phenomenon actually have?
Does it have any over-laying structure, centres of power, or any key persons orchestrating its essentially amorphous cyber-space activities.
Does it have a world-wide network of very power think-tanks especially those on the right side of the storm-in-a-teacup war of ideas. Does it have anything remotely like the all-encompassing political power and "culture" changing very worldly (concrete) power that this outfit possesses
http://www.project2025.org
Never mind too that it is essentially a storm-in-a-teacup conflict of mere ideas about the nature of reality, and as such is not really deconstructing any very concretized power structures all of which are the "offspring" of the now world dominant death-saturated paradigm brought to one and all by. the military-industrial complex. What kind of in-your-face message does a bomb communicate in contrast to a mere idea which quite rightly criticizes the ruling zeitgeist.
Meanwhile it is self-evidently true that Western Civilization, especially in the USA was founded on political, religious, economic and racial.