The Origin of Woke, By James Reed

Many of us conservative critics of woke, what used to be called by the much better term of phrase, "political correctness," often refer to woke as being grounded in cultural Marxism. Patrick West, quoting political scientist Eric Kaufmann, puts the case against this, arguing that Karl Marx did not write much on culture, which he saw as subservient to the economic base. Marx was an economic determinist who saw economic factors as being the primary causal agents in society.

Kaufmann in his book, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution, maintains that woke arose more from the 1960s revolution of hyper-liberalism, rather than Marxism, which was no doubt a part. As he says: "'Among egalitarian liberals, a pre-1965 cultural liberalism of rights and opportunities morphed into a post-1965 cultural socialism, powered by a progressive identity which seamlessly bridged the two mindsets through a "minorities good, majorities bad" set of affective attachments." In short, woke developed out of the 1960s race liberation movements for civil rights. From there it mutated year after year not what we see today.

There is merit in Kaufmann's view; certainly, race was the main catalyst for the 1960s revolutionary changes. But there were other important factors too, such as women and homosexuals, the sex/gender issue which was important. My view is the holistic one, that all of these forces were at work, manipulated by the globalists, and has led to what we suffer from today. In short, we have seen the merger of cultural Marxism and hyper-liberalism, into a new lethal anti-philosophy. Thus, now we face the entire unrestrained poisons of Leftism, a wasteland of political toxicity, flowing over the West.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/09/08/where-did-wokeness-come-from/

"It is often said that woke ideology is the expression and fulfilment of 'cultural Marxism'. Many take issue with this claim and this phrase, not least those who are familiar with Karl Marx and his writings. They reply that he concerned himself foremost with economic matters, not those related to culture. If we can detect any connection between Marxism and the project of transforming a society's attitudes and collective psychology it can probably be found in the work of the German intellectuals in and around the so-called Frankfurt School. They conceived of awakening the proletariat from its slumber, of developing class consciousness, as a cultural problem rather than a material, political task

Political scientist Eric Kaufmann also takes issue with the phrase 'cultural Marxism', preferring 'cultural socialism'. In fact, in his new book, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution, he takes issue with the entire idea that wokeness has its roots in Marxism or radical ideology. Sure, the broad creed that has broken into the mainstream over the past decade co-opted a lot of radical theory during its earlier development, including the thought of 1960s icons such as Herbert Marcuse and Michel Foucault – indeed, the latter bequeathed the theory of power being invisible and ubiquitous. But wokery, Kaufmann insists, is fundamentally a form of hyper-liberalism, an extreme egalitarianism. It is less a cast-iron ideology and more a soft religion. This explains why some of its claims can seem so bizarre – because that's how the tenets of religions usually appear to outsiders and non-believers.

Kaufmann argues that hyper-liberalism had its roots in 1960s America. It was then that white, middle-class Americans first awoke to the grievous racial injustices embedded in society. There was a wider liberal shift in political attitudes that decade, but the issue of race came to dominate. From this point, a new secular credo developed, expanded and entrenched itself: the belief that minorities needed to be liberated. This began as an extension of a simple, classic liberal belief in equality, but over time it became warped. As this new religion evolved, so did certain key doctrines: that minorities, being perpetually downtrodden and sinned against, are morally superior by virtue of that fact; and that the majority, by extension, are inherently malevolent and culpable. As Kaufmann puts it: 'Among egalitarian liberals, a pre-1965 cultural liberalism of rights and opportunities morphed into a post-1965 cultural socialism, powered by a progressive identity which seamlessly bridged the two mindsets through a "minorities good, majorities bad" set of affective attachments.'

Important, too, was the language and thinking of psychology and therapy. These helped shape the idea that minorities need protection from hurtful words that might cause trauma and damage to people's self-esteem. Kaufmann calls this shift in the mid-1960s, from cultural liberalism to cultural socialism, 'the big bang of our moral universe, from which taboos around sexism, homophobia, and transphobia were to later spring'. He continues: 'While radical ideas like critical race theory or gender ideology have gained ground, they only succeeded because they resonated with an established left-liberal hypersensitivity around identity issues.'

Kaufmann, currently tenured at the University of Buckingham, has been in academia long enough to witness first-hand the rise of this overbearing ideology. Hence, he is well placed to elucidate its development, and show how it emerged from shifts within liberalism, appropriated tropes from postmodernism and radical thought and incrementally became ever more otherworldly. Like other ideologies and religions, it has gradually become more extreme, with each devotee seeking to prove himself more pure and righteous than the next. Kaufmann shows convincingly how modern liberalism morphed into wokeness, capturing the institutions one by one: academia, schools, the public sector, museums, cinema, language and no doubt the world.

It's here to stay, too, he says. As I write these words, two news stories suggest Kaufmann is right. In one, a British university is decolonising its course on Medieval history to excise the word 'Anglo-Saxon'; in the other, the Bank of England is telling its staff to use 'gender neutral' pronouns when addressing colleagues.

There may have been some pushback against this ideology in recent years, especially when it comes to trans. But Kaufmann is not persuaded that we are approaching the 'end of woke'. He believes woke tenets are now firmly entrenched in our society, particularly in the minds of tomorrow's rulers, educators, policymakers, advertising executives and so on. As a middle-aged man, Kaufmann seeks to put it as delicately as possible, but he cannot refrain ultimately from calling out those who he deemed to be the most fervent custodians of our new morality: namely, young, middle-class, highly educated women.

He sees woke less as a coherent ideological system and more as an amorphous 'caring' credo (or 'vibe', as we might now say). He argues that this creed is spread and evangelised not from above, but horizontally by true believers who really think that they're on the side of the angels. Converts to woke think likewise. 'Incremental guilt and compassion, much more than envy or the desire to overthrow the existing order, have led us down this path', he writes. 'Left-liberal conviction, not cowardice, accounts for the power of cancel culture and critical race / gender ideology in organisations.'

Yet at the same time, he notes that the new ideology can connive and cajole when it needs to, through what Kaufmann calls a 'velvet glove' strategy. Today this often involves invoking the amenable-sounding trio of 'diversity, equity and inclusion' to conceal wokery's iron fist of compelled speech, unreason and illiberalism.

Some might see a contradiction here: is woke imposed on people, or do converts embrace it willingly? Yet it needn't be an 'either / or' matter. Undoubtedly, it spreads through both force and people's own volition. Those who embrace it think they are being virtuous. Those who would resist often acquiesce, fearing the consequences of doing or saying the wrong thing.

That's why overcoming woke will take far more than a few laws or a change of government. It will involve rethinking what we mean by 'caring' and 'uncaring'. It will involve daring to be regarded in public as 'bad people'. It will mean we cannot shy away from the culture war."