Woke Is Just Another Word for Liberal
T he conservative writer Bethany Mandel, a co-author of a new book attacking “wokeness” as “a new version of leftism that is aimed at your child,” recently froze up on a cable news program when asked by an interviewer how she defines woke , the term her book is about.
On the one hand, any of us with a public-facing job could have a similar moment of disassociation on live television. On the other hand, the moment and the debate it sparked revealed something important. Much of the utility of woke as a political epithet is tied to its ambiguity; it often allows its users to condemn something without making the grounds of their objection uncomfortably explicit.....
....Mandel herself later offered this definition of woke on Twitter: “A radical belief system suggesting that our institutions are built around discrimination, and claiming that all disparity is a result of that discrimination. It seeks a radical redefinition of society in which equality of group result is the endpoint, enforced by an angry mob.” The right-wing pundit Ben Shapiro offered a similar description .
I like Mandel’s definition because it makes the concept seem so reasonable that it requires a few modifiers and a straw man about mob enforcement to evoke the proper amount of dread in the reader. If you describe the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Eastern Europe in the 1990s, you don’t need to add that it was “radical” to get most people to understand that it was bad. But
the claim that “American institutions are built around discrimination” is just a straightforward account of history. And if few of the people who are caricatured as woke would argue that all disparities result from discrimination, most of them would agree that many key disparities along the axes of class, race, and gender do. But either the history, policy, and structure of the American economy matter or they don’t.
To claim the reverse, that people who are rich or white or male are just better than everyone else—to object to “equality of group result” as a goal, as if it’s absurd to believe that people from across the boundaries of the biological fiction of race could be equal—reveals a prejudice so overt that it practically affirms the “woke ” side of the argument.
The “radical redefinition of society” that many of the so-called woke seek is simply that it lives up to its stated commitments. And one really could, I suppose, describe that as radical—the abolition of slavery, the ratification of women’s suffrage, and the end of Jim Crow were all once genuinely radical positions whose adoption redefined American society.
Those transitions were only possible because, as Mandel’s definition inadvertently concedes, the ideology she opposes is grounded in fact. The United States could not have been created without displacing the people who were already living here . Its Constitution preserved slavery , which remained an engine of the national economy well into the 19th century. Among the first pieces of federal legislation was a bill limiting naturalization to free white people . Yet not even all white men could vote at the nation’s founding—property requirements shut out many until around 1840—and universal white male suffrage (sometimes including noncitizens !) was paired with the explicit disenfranchisement of Black men, even in some northern states. The nation was nearly rent in two because the slave economy and the social hierarchy it created were precious enough, even to men who did not own slaves , that they took up arms to defend the institution of human bondage with their life. After the Civil War, the former Confederates reimposed white supremacy and subjected the emancipated to an apartheid regime in which they had few real rights, a regime my mother was born into and my grandparents fled. For most of the history of the United States, Black people could not vote and women could not vote; American immigration policy in the early 20th century was based on eugenics and an explicit desire to keep out those deemed nonwhite ; the mid-century American prosperity unleashed by the New Deal that conservatives recall with such nostalgia was stratified by race .
I could go on, but I think you get the point. These things are real; they happened.
To believe that the disadvantages of race, class, and gender imposed lawfully over centuries never occurred or entirely disappeared in just a few decades is genuinely “radical” in a negative way; to believe that creating those disadvantages was wrong and that they should be rectified is not. The idea that no one ever succeeds based on advantages unrelated to their personal abilities is likewise radical, and also ludicrous.
But you can, perhaps, understand why one of the richest men in the world would consider the opposing idea—that where many people end up in life is the result of unearned advantages—to be a “woke mind virus” that should be eradicated. That kind of thinking leads to higher marginal tax rates for people with private planes.
Some people so deeply resent the implication that they possess any unearned advantage that, in Republican-run states all over the country, the same folks who were recently shrieking about free speech and oversensitive snowflakes are busy using the power of the state to ban discussions about factual matters that might hurt their feelings, such as descriptions of racial segregation in the story of Rosa Parks. The irony here is that by framing everything they don’t like as a symptom of pervasive oppression against white people or Christians that must be rectified by the state, they have themselves adopted the inverse of the logic they decry as “wokeness.” They believe that America’s demographic majorities are the targets of broad institutional discrimination , which is unjust not because such discrimination is morally abhorrent but because it is targeted at the wrong people.
Then there is the irony that the most zealous among the so-called woke and anti-woke form different denominations of the same religion, following high priests of racial salvation preaching parallel dogmas, one of which says that you need only read certain books or say certain words to attain salvation, and the other of which grants absolution to parishioners for their reflexive contempt for those they despise. Only one of them, however, has become the established church in certain states, deploying the power of the state to enforce its dogma .
You need not adopt either faith. Accepting the reality of American history and the persistence of discrimination does not mean that every egalitarian proposal is correct, nor that every egalitarian argument should be heeded. It does not necessarily mean that we should ban the SAT in college admissions or never refer to “women” when discussing abortion rights. Calling something racist or sexist doesn’t mean that what you are describing is racist or sexist. Conversely, something that appears to be race-neutral can be implemented in a discriminatory fashion, or even adopted with that intention. But if you do accept the reality of our past, then you probably think we should try to level the playing field in some way. The merits of specific arguments or proposals are separate from that underlying principle. Whatever woke might mean, however, it is clear that the objections of the militantly “anti-woke” find the egalitarian idea itself to be worthy of contempt.
To say that traditional hierarchies are just and good, well, that’s simply conservatism. It has been since the 18th century. And to say that those hierarchies do not reflect justice and that people should be equal under the law—all the people, not only propertied white men —well, that’s more or less just liberalism. But if you don’t like it, you’d probably call it woke.
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Great article.
BTW, the article image is probably too small for people to read. It is an image of the Supreme Court decision on Dred Scott stamped on its cover sheet with the word "WOKE".
The writer was very good at describing why liberals should not run from the "woke" description, but rather explain why woke is a good and logical thing.
I know anyone who criticizes wokeness and claims it's a bad thing is a moron and doesn't have a clue what they're talking about.
Yes, exactly! And like, "Liberal", is used as a slur by MAGA goppers...
Wokeness Has Replaced Socialism as the Great Conservative Bogeyman
...Seen from today, that moment looks less like a quirky cyclical trend and more like the passing of an era. “Wokeness” has supplanted socialism as the primary bogeyman among conservative politicians and pundits. The eclipse is evident in Google search trends and Fox News time allocation , and it has also been on vivid display over the past week, as leading figures in the Republican Party and right-wing media have portrayed the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank as a case of woke values undermining sound business practices and diversity, equity, and inclusion supplanting the profit motive. Complaints about bailouts have been mostly the province of the left—which objects not to government spending but to helping the wealthy.
Part of this is because capitalism has won—or rather, it continues to win. Insofar as any real question exists about the merits of socialism versus capitalism, the population has long since reached stasis on it . Though self-described democratic socialists such as Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are still prominent in the Democratic Party, Joe Biden’s more moderate approach is what dominates the party now.
Two other changes have also pushed the socialism charge to the side, at least for the moment. First, after the initial pink scare of the early Obama years, both parties shifted their focus more toward racial politics, a dynamic that continues today. Second, the dominant faction in the Republican Party, embodied by Donald Trump and now Ron DeSantis, has abandoned its commitment to limited government, instead embracing a muscular role for the state—especially in enforcing conservative cultural values against the progressive ones labeled as “woke.”
Defining what conservatives mean by wokeness is, as the writer Bethany Mandel learned the hard way this week , not easily done. For the purposes of discussion here, it also isn’t necessary. Many people use the term in different ways, to describe a general constellation of progressive ideas on race, gender, and sexuality, but what matters is the fact that they are using it, and using it somewhat indiscriminately. After all, most of what an earlier generation of conservatives called “socialism” wasn’t really socialist, either.
The term woke originates in Black slang and is popular in youth culture, both of which are helpful for understanding their interpretation on the right. The election of Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was briefly hailed as evidence that the United States had transcended race, a moment that was followed immediately by race reasserting its central role in American politics. The reaction to Obama included a huge spike in white identity politics (driven in part by rising immigration), openly racist rhetoric, and debates over police killings of people of color. Trump exploited this opportunity, making appeals to racial resentment one of the foremost elements of his campaign and presidency.
Although some characteristics of the wokeness discourse (including critiques of free speech, a focus on equitable outcomes, and critical race theory, the actual academic movement) are somewhat novel, much of the backlash to wokeness is just repackaged versions of old racial backlash (most notably the frequent use of critical race theory to mean practically any discussion of racism) or critiques of political correctness. Because woke vernacular, like support for progressive causes, is especially popular among younger people, wokeness has also become a battlefield for fighting old generational conflicts between the more liberal young and more conservative older generations.
In perhaps a more subtle shift, right-wing figures may be less inclined to complain about overweening state power because some conservatives have now embraced the possibilities of big government. One form this takes is support for entitlements. Paul Ryan, a dominant intellectual figure in the Obama-era GOP and a man who had dreamed of capping Medicaid since his keg-drinking days , is now a lone voice in the wilderness. Donald Trump beat the GOP presidential field in 2016 in part by promising not to cut Social Security or Medicare, and that view has become mainstream. This year, leading Republican figures in Congress vowed not to cut them, either, which is probably good politics though it renders their budget-slashing aims basically impossible. Fiscal conservatives find themselves marginalized in the party.
But some conservative politicians and pundits have also warmed to the idea of using the state to punish their ideological opponents—just the sort of behavior they warned about under totalitarian communist regimes. Tucker Carlson, the right’s leading media figure, endorses the use of the state to harass the COVID-cautious. DeSantis, a former Tea Party stalwart, has reinvented himself as a lite authoritarian, eager to wield government power to tell private companies how to conduct their business. He’s not alone. Republicans across the country are seeking ways to bully companies out of environmental, social, and governance approaches, deriding them as woke. The irony is that in many cases these companies are adopting the trappings of progressivism not out of any deep ideological commitment but instead because they see it as a business advantage .
Meanwhile, conservatives warning about censorship of conservative views have turned to speech codes and trying to force tech companies to host certain viewpoints at the insistence of the government—oxymoronically pursuing censorship in order to save free speech from wokeness.
“Socialism” has faded as a rallying cry because this conservative movement can hardly pretend to be horrified by big government, and it has learned that its voters aren’t especially interested in cutting spending programs, either, at least the ones that benefit them. Attacking wokeness fills that void—we might even cheekily call this the GOP’s successor ideology —with an alternative that is malleable enough to apply to nearly any situation. But as the SVB story demonstrates, the malleability is also a weakness. If wokeness is an explanation for everything, it is also an explanation for nothing. Although it’s a good way to gather a range of cultural resentments, it offers little in the way of policy ideas to improve lives, even in contrast to vague promises such as trickle-down economics. No one has yet provided any explanation of what an anti-woke bank-regulation regime might look like—and no one will. This is an attack suited to a party that exists only to campaign, with no interest in actually governing.
The other side does get to have a word once in a while, right John?
After all you have the pronouns, the non-binary BS, the Conspiracy theorists and the newly minted "MAGA Republicans."
So, let us use a word gifted to us from our brothers in the hood.
MAGA is a term your hero popularized, not Democrats or liberals. The adherents are so proud of it they wear hats proclaiming it.
You and yours are the ones who are keeping MAGA alive the last few years. Free publicity for Trump as it were and he thanks you.
How is maga newly minted? It was coined by that fat turd about 6 or 7 years ago and his followers/enablers/supporters are magats.
When don't you have your word?
When does your turd hero ever shut up and when do you ever stop defending him?
So, are you claiming that it's 'our brothers in the hood' who coined woke?
I seem to remember someone posting some bullshit article to that effect.
notice the date
Lol ... the triggered lefts obsession with Trump has keep MAGA in the news since 2016 ...... by the way .... that was seven years ago John.
Notice that date?
How about todays date ? This is from the Trump rally in Waco, today. See that big sign? What does it say?
There is another sign with the same thing on it on the other side of the stage.
And you and the press love giving him more publicity. NYC media promoted him for years and national media took over for a decade.
Nice crowd.
That must piss off Biden and his Bidenettes with the mini crowds he normally manages to eek out. That is when he left his basement.
Donald Trump did not become the 2016 candidate because the media chose him, he became the candidate because people who wanted to take "their" country back chose him.
MAGA IS the driving movement and motive of trumpism, and has been for 7 or 8 years. Most MAGA brag about not watching or reading liberal media, so how can media stories on Trump be keeping him alive as a politician unless they are being read on right wing media?
Sparty claimed MAGA is only kept alive by liberals. There are literally two giant signs, or they might be large video screens, at the Trump rally TODAY that have MAGA blaring out on them.
You guys have no argument on this topic, so why not let it go.
Donald Trump has enjoyed extreme media attention most of his adult life. If you don’t see the political advantage then you don’t know politics.
Wrong and stop trying to put words in my mouth. I said you and yours kept it alive since he won in 2016. Are all the liberals here John?
Anyone who spent more than a minute here in that seven years would have seen that.
Stop lying John.
The PD&D is clinical like I said before - it is one of the symptoms that will be written up in the DSM for psychiatric disorders of true TDS sufferers.
TDS has the tendency to destroy all reason with some folks when it comes to Trump. I’m not a doctor but I call it brain rot.
Now that you have been shown to not have a point regarding MAGA, you just revert to making senseless proclamations about "TDS".
MAGA is represented in large wording at Trumps rally TODAY. Are you claiming liberals are the reason? LOL. You must never have observed the people who attend Trump rallies.
I see Waldo!
The TDS brain rot continues ..... sad.
Yes indeed John, wokeness is just another CONservative boogeyman.
Another that they are exploiting now is trying to eliminate the LGBTQIA+ community by banning Drag Shows and Drag Queens and pulling the liquor licenses of establishments that have Drag Shows and banning them from college campus and everywhere else they possibly can.
More liberal pretzel logic:
So wealthy people are oppressing people by patronizing them? Or are responsible for their lack of fiscal responsibility?
Crazy, wack-a-doodle liberal thinking.
As a term 'woke' was born to be maligned, I cringed the first time I heard it knowing full well that it would be used as a catchall to denigrate. However, over time it has morphed into a conservative 'wokeness' dressed up as 'anti-woke'. DeSantis is being 'woke' every time he uses the term as are his fans every time they cheer.
The morons against it have no clue what it is.
You'd have to be a moron to be against decency.
The term “woke” was coined to describe the latest “neo” version of liberalism. Crazy and out of touch with most Americans. It defines a tyrannical extreme of liberalism and doesn’t represent many liberals or most conservatives.
It’s a most excellently descriptive and accurate term for the kooks that worship at its altar.
Woke is an irrationally heightened sense of disadvantage. Some are so woke that they exhibit paranoia of being disadvantaged. Wokeness is based solely upon identifying disadvantage and justifies itself with amorphous claims of pursuing equality or equity. Woke cannot achieve equality or equity because doing so would require imposing discriminating disadvantages on others.
Woke is nothing more than an attempt to turn perceived disadvantage into an advantage for obtaining an unearned benefit. Being woke demands a discriminating attitude that favors disadvantage. Only those who can perceive disadvantage can be woke.
A creation of the participation trophy generation.
Woke is simply a state of clear awareness. Why people keep trying to make it all these political things is ridiculous.
It's amusing for starters because wokeness is a fundamentally illiberal belief system, in that it's an attack on individual rights in favor of equality by race outcomes. Woke is the antithesis of liberal.
at people who are rich or white or male are just better than everyone else—
But east Asians are the most successful group in the country.
o object to “equality of group result” as a goa
Well yeah. Because focusing on equality of a group is incompatible with liberal democracy.
This whole screed is really nothing but strawmen.
I think this from a few years ago sums up the situation much better:
Ex