Woke Ideology Deconstructed, By James Reed

Dissent Right critics go on about the evils of woke ideology and philosophies, "woke" being the new term that encompasses political correctness, and goes beyond it, largely to incorporate the trans business. But what exactly is woke? In the extract below from the Naked Emperor's substack, a case is made that woke is technically critical constructivism, formulated by Magill University academic Joe Kincheloe, a critical pedagogue. The general idea was that education should be conditioning for social and political action, namely Left-wing action. This open brainwashing was, and still is, cultural neo-Marxism, bringing together critical theory, a form of neo-Marxism, and social constructionism of the postmodernists, that there is no objective knowledge, all is politics. This is a doubly toxic brew, but it is something now force-fed to students from kindy right through to university. It churns out clones that could just as easily have come off the production line of a human factory from Brave New World.

People who might doubt this, finding it "far-fetched and fanciful," a famous phrase from an English torts case, should visit our universities and see what is happening there. Almost every lunch time there is some trans event, some cultural push for Islam, tent protests and the like. I went to my old university yesterday and checked out the tent protest at dinner time. There were many tables full of seemingly delicious food. I wondered if these adult kiddies slept in the tents or if they were for show, as it would be mighty cold? Still, the food was hot and steaming, steam rising up into the cold dark night of political correctness.But, still a lot of fun, like urban camping, only with a halo of political righteousness, known as … woke!

https://nakedemperor.substack.com/p/what-is-woke-ideology

"There's a right name for the "Woke" ideology, and it's critical constructivism. Critical constructivist ideology is what you "wake up" to when you go Woke. Reading this book, which originally codified it in 2005, is like reading a confession of Woke ideology. Let's talk about it.

The guy whose name is on the cover of that book is credited with codifying critical constructivism, or as it would be better to call it, critical constructivist ideology (or ideologies). His name is Joe Kincheloe, he was at Magill University, and he was a critical pedagogue.

Just to remind you, critical pedagogy is a form of brainwashing posing as education that is the application of critical theory to educational theory and praxis as well as teaching and practice of critical theories in schools. It comes from Paulo Freire.

It's not the right thread to outline Paulo Freire or critical pedagogy, but the short summary is that critical pedagogy was developed from Freire's method of "education," which is to use educational materials as a "mediator to political knowledge," i.e., excuse to brainwash.

The point of critical pedagogy is to use education as a means not to educated but to raise a critical consciousness in students instead. That is, its purpose is to make them "Woke." What does that entail, though? It means becoming a critical constructivist, as Kincheloe details.

Note what we've already said, though. Yes, Marcuse. Yes, intersectionality. Yes, CRT and Queer Theory et cetera. Yes, yes, yes. That's Woke, BUT Woke was born and bred in education schools. I first recognized this right after we published Cynical Theories in 2020.

Critical pedagogy, following people like Henry Giroux and Joe Kincheloe, forged together the religious liberationist Marxism of Freire, literally a Liberation Theologian, with the "European theorists," including both Critical Marxists like Marcuse and postmodernists like Foucault.

In other words, when Jordan Peterson identified what we now call "Woke" as "postmodern neo-Marxism," he was exactly right. It was neo-Marxist critique that had taken a postmodern turn away from realism and reality. The right name for that is "critical constructivism."

Critical constructivism contains (or synthesizes) two disparate parts: "critical," which refers to Critical Theory (that is, neo-Marxism or Critical Marxism), and "constructivism," which refers to the constructivist thinking at the heart of postmodernism and poststructuralism.

Critical Theory we all already generally understand at this point. The idea is pretty simple: ruthless criticism of everything that exists; calling everything you want to control "oppression" until you control it; finding a new proletariat in "ghetto populations"; blah blah blah.

More accurately, Critical Theory means believing the world and the people in it are contoured by systems of social, cultural, and economic power that are effectively inescapable and all serve to reproduce the "existing society" (status quo) and its capitalist engine.

Critical Theory is not concerned with the operation of the world, "epistemic adequacy" (knowing what you're talking about), or anything else. They're interested in how systemic power shapes and contours all things and how they're experienced and gives (neo)-Marxist critique.

Constructivism is a bit less familiar for two reasons:

1) We've done a lot of explaining and criticizing Critical Theory already, so people are catching on, and

2) It's a downright alien intellectual landscape that is almost impossible to believe anyone actually believes.

You're already very familiar with the language of constructivism: "X is a social construct." Constructivism fundamentally believes that *the world* is socially constructed. That's a profound claim. So are *people* as part of the world. That's another profound claim. So is power.

I need you to stop thinking you get it and listen now because you're probably already rejecting the idea that anyone can be a constructivist who believes the world is itself socially constructed. That's because you're fundamentally a realist, but they are not realists at all.

Constructivists believe, as Kincheloe says explicitly, that *nothing exists before perception*. That means some objective, shared reality doesn't exist to constructivists. There is no reality except the perception of reality, and the perception of reality is constructed by power.

I need you to stop again because you probably reject getting it again. They really believe this. There is no reality except perceived reality. Reality is perceived according to one's social and political position with respect to prevailing dominant power. Do you understand?

Constructivism rejects the idea of an objective shared reality that we can observe and draw consistent conclusions about. Conclusions are the result of perceptions and interpretations, which are colored and shaped by dominant power, mostly in getting people to accept that power.

In place of an objective shared reality we can draw conclusions about, we all inhabit our own "lived realities" that are shaped by power dynamics that primarily play out on the group level, hence the need for "social justice" to make power equitable among and across groups.

Because (critical) constructivist ideologies believe themselves the only way to truly study the effects of systemic dominant power, they have a monopoly on knowing how it works, who benefits, and who suffers oppression because of it. Their interpretation is the only game in town.

All interpretations that disagree with critical constructivism do so for one or more bad reasons: not knowing the value of critical constructivism, being motivated to protect one's power on one or more levels, prejudice and hate, having bought the dominant ideology's terms, etc.

Critical constructivism is particularly hostile to "Western" science, favoring what it calls "subjugated knowledges." This should all feel very familiar right now, and it's worth noting that Kincheloe is largely credited with starting the idea of "decolonizing" knowledge.

Kincheloe, in his own words, explains that critical constructivism is a weltanshuuang, that is, a worldview, based on a "critical hermeneutical" understanding of experienced reality. This means it intends to interpret *everything* through critical constructivism.

In other words, critical constructivism is a hermetically sealed ideological worldview (a cult worldview) that claims a monopoly on interpretation of the world by virtue of its capacity to call anything that challenges it an unjust application of self-serving dominant power.

When you are "Woke," you are a critical constructivist, or at least suffer ideological contamination by critical constructivism, whether you know it or not. You believe important aspects of the world are socially (politically) constructed, that power is the main variable, etc."