Respecting an individuals race, sex, gender orientation is one thing, but what has become known as identity politics and ‘wokeism’ is quite another. Not only are these things hollow but they are being used as yet another tool by the ruling class to divide us.
The West has a dire need to put ideological beliefs and partisan politics aside and honestly reevaluate how our culture has become a toxic stew of maladaptive group think. Identity politics, critical race theory and the bizarre fusion of Wokeism’s ideology with pop culture has gone beyond mere indifferent toleration and become infused into our institutions and legal system.
Nancy Pelosi's appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race
Some may blame social media which has undoubtedly revolutionized the public commons for dialogue and debate. Rather than creating new forums and venues for diverse groups to resolve differences amicably to discover common ground, social media platforms have further shredded the prospects for a future cohesive society that respects humanity’s enormous diversity and differences in political persuasions, social and religious beliefs and world views.
Conceivably community has been replaced with self-entitlement, gender dysphoria, mobile phones, pornography, Facebook, TikTok and other social media with its cancel culture. Ironically, a movement that set out to increase a societies acceptance of oppressed members has become almost fascist like in it’s demands. As we can see in the pages of supposedly left leaning media the woke tyranny has welcomed social media censorship, pandemic lockdowns, vaccination mandates, firing of professors, and supports the government usurping greater control in order to police people’s thoughts and beliefs.
In Norman Finkelstein's latest book I'll burn that bridge when I get to it, he exposes the curbing liberty of speech. I used to follow the old free speech for everyone but fascists, but recent experience (the last three years) has taught me to be a free speech absolutist. In the book he goes through and then obliterates the nonsense spouted by characters such as Kimberlé Crenshaw, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, and Ibram X Kendi.
The book came out of an article published in Harper's in July 2020;
The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy. But resistance must not be allowed to harden into its own brand of dogma or coercion—which right-wing demagogues are already exploiting. The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides.
He writes of;
an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty...More troubling still, institutional leaders, in a spirit of panicked damage control, are delivering hasty and disproportionate punishments instead of considered reforms. Editors are fired for running controversial pieces; books are withdrawn for alleged inauthenticity; journalists are barred from writing on certain topics; professors are investigated for quoting works of literature in class; a researcher is fired for circulating a peer-reviewed academic study; and the heads of organizations are ousted for what are sometimes just clumsy mistakes.
Hyper-Individualism
Wokeism places a high premium on hyper-individualism at the expense of social cooperation and tranquillity. It elevates victimhood, whether authentic or counterfeit, and therefore the woke demand our compassion and empathy. Consequently the woke’s victimhood is viewed on the right as nothing more than attention-seeking narcissism. White/male/heterosexuals feel themselves the target of blame as an emphasis is placed on individual behaviours and thoughts as opposed to systemic concerns.
However, and this may come as a surprise to some, the real target of identity politics is to attack the left. Having the appearance of left wing credentials has been invaluable to set the right against identity politics ideologically, whilst leaving the left dealing with an internal enemy. It has left many of the left persuasion unable to reject false claims of racism or sexism without accusations of racism or misogyny. This was used to great effect in the UK when claims of anti-Semitism were used successfully to oust the left leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn.
The Forde inquiry has confirmed (in hindsight) that the Labour right wing was cynically utilising anti-Semitism accusations for factional purposes. Nevertheless, John McDonnell and other leading left-wingers would regularly say the party must apologise to the ‘Jewish community’ for its ‘problem’ with anti-Semitism. And under Corbyn’s leadership, left-wing MP Chris Williamson was suspended for saying they had apologised too much over the matter.
In the leadership election following Corbyn’s resignation, left-wing candidate Rebecca Long Bailey said that Labour "owed Jewish people an apology". And at one leadership hustings, she agreed it was “anti-Semitic to describe Israel, its policies, or the circumstances around its foundation as racist”.
With these ideas, all any enemy of the left needs to do is hurl an accusation, no matter how absurd, and the left will immediately collapse in order to atone for the sin of which they are accused. Identity politics is so useful to the ruling class because of how sensitive the left is to accusations of racism or discrimination of any kind.
This was underscored by how it was The Guardian, the left leaning news outlet in the UK, that was the most vociferous regarding Corbyn’s anti-Semitism, printing roughly one article a day on this subject until Corbyn was removed as leader of the Labour Party and having the Labour whip removed.
Identity politics is not interested in the causes of oppression rather it concerns itself fully with subjective individual experience. Whilst an individual's experience of the world is important, it moves the debate away from collective understanding and action to fight oppression.
One of the main problems with this approach is that it assumes only individuals from the group in question can understand or even have the right to represent the oppressed group in question. Furthermore, it has developed into a culture whereby an accusation of racism, sexism, homophobia etc, must be accepted when made by a member of an oppressed group and that to reject it is in itself an act of oppression.
This has a tendency to lead therefore to tokenism.
The insincerity of identity politics can be seen clearly when we see how the appointment to political office of representatives of various identity groups does not lead to any advancement of their group.
Does having an Indian Prime Minister mean the Conservative Party are less racist and embrace immigrants? Did Barack Obama advance the situation of black people in the US? Have the political appointments of women led to less war?
The use of quotas to guarantee a desired proportion of people of colour or of women in positions of power is a completely artificial and bureaucratic method. It does nothing to diminish racism or misogyny, or to remove the real material barriers that prevent the most oppressed and exploited layers of society from engaging in politics.
As Finkelstein writes;
The restriction of debate, whether by a repressive government or an intolerant society, invariably hurts those who lack power and makes everyone less capable of democratic participation.
In practice, this often means that the candidates for these seats are unopposed, because not enough black members put themselves forward for a competition. As a result, those who do put themselves forward are automatically given the position. In reality, they lack a base of support in the membership and are unknown to them. It has arguably enabled the most limited minded to rise to influence regardless of any merit or achievement people may have earned during their lifetime.
There is no evidence that these tokenistic policies have done anything to help prevent or mitigate racism or sexism, for example.
Under cancel culture, it has now become standard practice for people to trawl through social media history and dig up some post that can be construed as in some way racist, even if it was from when they were a child. More often than not, the obvious cynicism and dishonesty behind these accusations only serves to produce more cynicism in society.
Life's complications under a woke culture
Official morality is always hypocritical. Morality serves class ends, but is presented as if it is above such interests; as if there are timeless moral laws one must apply, above and regardless of the interests of the majority.
The collateral damage has been the demolition of whatever remains of a former moral structure that once upheld universal humanitarian and spiritual values. Indeed we look into a future where labelling is playing nicely into the forthcoming social-credit scoring that will divide the socially acceptable from the unacceptable. Any deviance against woke’s dogma and its rules of behaviour is judged evil, vile and a threat to a new society founded upon totalitarian principles to assure a highly controlled social order.
