Wokeness is absolutely a religion for the irreligious. There’s something in human nature that clearly craves concepts of sin, repentance, penance, and fighting the infidels.
Does “almost every Asian” have experiences like that? 85% of Indian Americans say that racism against them is a minor problem or not a problem: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/16/miss-america-pageant-puts-indian-americans-in-the-spotlight/. That’s certainly my experience as a brown guy with a Muslim name that went to college in the south post 9/11. My precinct went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, and I’ve encountered zero racism in 6 years of living here. My dad, who travels a lot, was commenting about how little racism he’s experienced in 30+ years in America.
The story about your friend’s dad is unfortunate and unpleasant. But I think the takeaway depends on how you look at it. Anyone unhinged enough to beat someone up over a traffic altercation may well say whatever thinks will be hurtful and get a reaction. If there was some other notable characteristic of the victim the attacker may well have focused on that instead.
I would point out: why are Asians getting attacked in the Bay Area and NYC? I don’t think it’s because those places are hotbeds of racism, but rather hotbeds of crime and mental disorders. The only times in my life I’ve been called racial epithets have been from homeless black people in Atlanta. Are they yelling at me because of racism, or is racism what they happen to lash out with?
As a corollary to this post, perhaps someone should dig into the cynical economic rationale for wokeness being absolutely pervasive in the west. Is it true cultural progress or the billionaire and corporate class want to distract the masses with identity issues while they continue to rob rest of society blind? No surprise that Occupy Wall St petered out just as wokeness became paramount.
You underestimate the extent it which wokeness has inserted post-modern ideas into our way of thinking about the world. Post-modernism is radically skeptical, questioning the existence of an observer-independent reality and absolute truth. It is incompatible with the enlightenment emphasis on reason and evidence, which has been so important for human progress. I think you underestimate the threat this poses. The editorial staff of scientific journals and health care professionals are embracing practices that explicitly reject evidence and reason. That seems dangerous to me.
"And hey, guess what. As I type that list, it’s starting to sound like a typical “woke” litany of marginalized groups." surely you're joking. Asians are never included as part of marginalized groups unless convenient as tool to score some political point.
Separately, am confused by "I feel like the America I grew up in could learn a thing or two from Japan in this regard.". I think your experience of living in Japan may have been extremely atypical vs. lived local experiences. Social stratification between "elitos" and arubaito level losers? bullying in schools and workplaces? oppression of minorities like ethnic korean ainu etc? casual racism? rampant sexism? check check check check check. Just because people bow a lot (especially when interacting with white male americans) doesn't mean there is more respect to go around. I do realize you wrote that quoted sentence some years ago but given you didn't repudiate it just now am afraid your understanding of the country hasn't progressed since.
Another likely factor is the advent of cheap smartphones making anyone a potential videographer, meaning that racial incidents that used to go unreported are now out in the open. As Will Smith once said in an interview, "racism isn't getting worse, it's getting filmed."
Minor nit, but I think it’s quite inaccurate to categorize McWhorter as a conservative. He’s a liberal with non-woke views on race. To concede that this makes him conservative cedes the whole game IMHO.
I posit that declining religious adherence in the United States [1] is leaving the door open for other methods to proclaim purity, salvation and other traditional Christian values. In fact, one can observe the rise of "purity circles" among insular, online communities.[2] This issue, combined with the storied American tradition of "grifting" [3] [4], in the Second Gilded Age [5], combine to orient a hierarchy of what can be considered American "virtue signaling" ala classism in the normal sense.
I am proudly anti-woke, not because I do not recognize that some of their criticisms are valid but because the prescriptions they offer are no medicine for the disease. Liberalism provides the solutions we need to make America a more respectful place. Liberalism has already brought us quite far, and we do not need to root out the foundations of our nation in order to fix these problems. I would add: I completely agree that respect is a renewable and endless resource. The woke do not agree. They act and demand the rest of us recognize that respect and status are limited, and that white people need to give it up. If not voluntarily than by cultural force. This, to me, in unacceptable. You build a nation by expanding it.
The woke have no respect for conservatives, no respect for many religions (which is ironic since I agree that this is an American phenomenon and quite religious, not unlike Marxism), and no respect for any who disagree even slightly from their dogma.
I hope we can take the best of their ideas and work to improve the country. I am fearful that this is now impossible.
This is a very good article. Noah, is always very thoughtful and it’s very welcome to see him revisiting his perspective on supporters of social justice in the US. I have some real issues with the framing of this article including the core language, but he comes at it in good faith and so I appreciate the exposure to his perspective.
But I did want to share two concerns. For example, “woke” is becoming a right wing term that seeks to be dismissive at best, and an epithet at worst to tar the straightforward tenets it seeks to promote. It’s hard see if you’re not it’s intended target, but “woke” honestly has just become a cheeky negative way to say “black” “female” “gay” “liberal” interests and people. If someone says something has gone “woke” it literally just means a woman, black person, etc. exists in a way they don’t like. The danger of normalizing that should be obvious. And yes, you can be anti-woke of any persuasion, but the essentialism that’s become embedded within the term is clear imo - Chris Rufo and Ron DeSantis wins again. I understand the challenge, but the term is now “cringe” and may put off folks who’d benefit from your perspective.
The other thing that is just funny to me is that the idea that pursuing social justice and respect as Noah states has “excess” that can be measured on a scale anywhere near the illiberal threat the right represents today. Like, unleash the most cringe, tone deaf, cumbaya DEI garbage and help me understand where that leads us to vs. democratic backsliding needed to keep the momentum from having real impact.
Those are my quibbles, and want to be clear about those, but the clarity around this being about social justice, respect and is deep within American traditions is important (with the 1619 criticism the most important). Making white people or other people who don’t fit entirely within the label feel like they are excluded if they don’t accept the approach of this movement to its universal goals *is* dangerous. Better to have Noah and others like him inside the tent vs outside the tent as it were.
I do think the “anti-woke” backlash is not only typical, but expected, and it’s impressive how effective it is able to create fissures inside a coalition that wants the same goals.
My question is why are we ignoring the most obvious source of this cultural moment? The United States is diversifying incredibly quickly and will only become more diverse in the future. Women who are more educated than ever, Black Americans as well along with various waves of immigrants and their kids who are now in places of relative privilege even vs. 20 years ago. Those people are now trying to empower themselves and helping people who share their experience. This is the American dream in action! The surprise to me is that we hit a cultural tipping point where power structures in the US basically said “We agree!” Anti-woke folks were caught on the back foot and are trying to assert themselves back in the other direction and I believe they will ultimately fail. They use “excess” and “woke BS” as cover imo, “but diversity printer go ‘brrrr’” and so what’s the alternative but to support that integration?
The moment I realized I probably couldn't live there, was when the new CEO of Firefox (the creator of Javascript, not a nobody) was forced to quit because he had supported proposition 8 in California by donating money.
It seemed very unreasonable to me, after all Proposition 8 had won in California, and even Obama said he was against gay marriage at that time. I don't think it's a honest position to be fine with making money from clients with belief A (such as the majority of the population of California in 2008), while thinking that having an employee with that belief should not be tolerated.
The police problem doesn’t actually exist. The data shows it doesn’t. The George Floyd situation had nothing to do with race. Woke is just about power and money.
Wokeness is absolutely a religion for the irreligious. There’s something in human nature that clearly craves concepts of sin, repentance, penance, and fighting the infidels.
Does “almost every Asian” have experiences like that? 85% of Indian Americans say that racism against them is a minor problem or not a problem: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/09/16/miss-america-pageant-puts-indian-americans-in-the-spotlight/. That’s certainly my experience as a brown guy with a Muslim name that went to college in the south post 9/11. My precinct went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016, and I’ve encountered zero racism in 6 years of living here. My dad, who travels a lot, was commenting about how little racism he’s experienced in 30+ years in America.
The story about your friend’s dad is unfortunate and unpleasant. But I think the takeaway depends on how you look at it. Anyone unhinged enough to beat someone up over a traffic altercation may well say whatever thinks will be hurtful and get a reaction. If there was some other notable characteristic of the victim the attacker may well have focused on that instead.
I would point out: why are Asians getting attacked in the Bay Area and NYC? I don’t think it’s because those places are hotbeds of racism, but rather hotbeds of crime and mental disorders. The only times in my life I’ve been called racial epithets have been from homeless black people in Atlanta. Are they yelling at me because of racism, or is racism what they happen to lash out with?
As a corollary to this post, perhaps someone should dig into the cynical economic rationale for wokeness being absolutely pervasive in the west. Is it true cultural progress or the billionaire and corporate class want to distract the masses with identity issues while they continue to rob rest of society blind? No surprise that Occupy Wall St petered out just as wokeness became paramount.
You underestimate the extent it which wokeness has inserted post-modern ideas into our way of thinking about the world. Post-modernism is radically skeptical, questioning the existence of an observer-independent reality and absolute truth. It is incompatible with the enlightenment emphasis on reason and evidence, which has been so important for human progress. I think you underestimate the threat this poses. The editorial staff of scientific journals and health care professionals are embracing practices that explicitly reject evidence and reason. That seems dangerous to me.
"And hey, guess what. As I type that list, it’s starting to sound like a typical “woke” litany of marginalized groups." surely you're joking. Asians are never included as part of marginalized groups unless convenient as tool to score some political point.
Separately, am confused by "I feel like the America I grew up in could learn a thing or two from Japan in this regard.". I think your experience of living in Japan may have been extremely atypical vs. lived local experiences. Social stratification between "elitos" and arubaito level losers? bullying in schools and workplaces? oppression of minorities like ethnic korean ainu etc? casual racism? rampant sexism? check check check check check. Just because people bow a lot (especially when interacting with white male americans) doesn't mean there is more respect to go around. I do realize you wrote that quoted sentence some years ago but given you didn't repudiate it just now am afraid your understanding of the country hasn't progressed since.
Another likely factor is the advent of cheap smartphones making anyone a potential videographer, meaning that racial incidents that used to go unreported are now out in the open. As Will Smith once said in an interview, "racism isn't getting worse, it's getting filmed."
Noah, your posts on wokeness have really shaped my thinking and they deserve a large audience. Thanks
There is a very simple explanation for wokeness. It goes like this:
1. The only explanation acceptable in polite society for differences in group performance is discrimination.
2. Groups differ markedly in socioeconomic performance, interests, rates of anti-social behaviour, and many other things.
3. These differences must be explained, and the only explanation educated people allow themselves to have is the one outlined in 1.
4. The discrimination must come from some place. Since group differences are so large, these sources must be omnipresent in societies.
5. “Being on time is White Supremacy”.
At the risk of sounding like an ass, I confidently believe most everything else written on this topic is sophistry.
Minor nit, but I think it’s quite inaccurate to categorize McWhorter as a conservative. He’s a liberal with non-woke views on race. To concede that this makes him conservative cedes the whole game IMHO.
"What was once a Cambrian explosion of memes and ideas has now been canonized, standardized, and institutionalized."
Just want to say that I love this sentence.
I posit that declining religious adherence in the United States [1] is leaving the door open for other methods to proclaim purity, salvation and other traditional Christian values. In fact, one can observe the rise of "purity circles" among insular, online communities.[2] This issue, combined with the storied American tradition of "grifting" [3] [4], in the Second Gilded Age [5], combine to orient a hierarchy of what can be considered American "virtue signaling" ala classism in the normal sense.
[1] See https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/01/14/measuring-religion-in-pew-research-centers-american-trends-panel/
[2] See https://unherd.com/2020/01/cast-out-how-knitting-fell-into-a-purity-spiral/
[3] See https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/01/black-lives-matter-finances.html
[4] See also the Duke and the Dauphin, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
[5] See https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol66/iss5/1/
I am proudly anti-woke, not because I do not recognize that some of their criticisms are valid but because the prescriptions they offer are no medicine for the disease. Liberalism provides the solutions we need to make America a more respectful place. Liberalism has already brought us quite far, and we do not need to root out the foundations of our nation in order to fix these problems. I would add: I completely agree that respect is a renewable and endless resource. The woke do not agree. They act and demand the rest of us recognize that respect and status are limited, and that white people need to give it up. If not voluntarily than by cultural force. This, to me, in unacceptable. You build a nation by expanding it.
The woke have no respect for conservatives, no respect for many religions (which is ironic since I agree that this is an American phenomenon and quite religious, not unlike Marxism), and no respect for any who disagree even slightly from their dogma.
I hope we can take the best of their ideas and work to improve the country. I am fearful that this is now impossible.
This is a very good article. Noah, is always very thoughtful and it’s very welcome to see him revisiting his perspective on supporters of social justice in the US. I have some real issues with the framing of this article including the core language, but he comes at it in good faith and so I appreciate the exposure to his perspective.
But I did want to share two concerns. For example, “woke” is becoming a right wing term that seeks to be dismissive at best, and an epithet at worst to tar the straightforward tenets it seeks to promote. It’s hard see if you’re not it’s intended target, but “woke” honestly has just become a cheeky negative way to say “black” “female” “gay” “liberal” interests and people. If someone says something has gone “woke” it literally just means a woman, black person, etc. exists in a way they don’t like. The danger of normalizing that should be obvious. And yes, you can be anti-woke of any persuasion, but the essentialism that’s become embedded within the term is clear imo - Chris Rufo and Ron DeSantis wins again. I understand the challenge, but the term is now “cringe” and may put off folks who’d benefit from your perspective.
The other thing that is just funny to me is that the idea that pursuing social justice and respect as Noah states has “excess” that can be measured on a scale anywhere near the illiberal threat the right represents today. Like, unleash the most cringe, tone deaf, cumbaya DEI garbage and help me understand where that leads us to vs. democratic backsliding needed to keep the momentum from having real impact.
Those are my quibbles, and want to be clear about those, but the clarity around this being about social justice, respect and is deep within American traditions is important (with the 1619 criticism the most important). Making white people or other people who don’t fit entirely within the label feel like they are excluded if they don’t accept the approach of this movement to its universal goals *is* dangerous. Better to have Noah and others like him inside the tent vs outside the tent as it were.
I do think the “anti-woke” backlash is not only typical, but expected, and it’s impressive how effective it is able to create fissures inside a coalition that wants the same goals.
My question is why are we ignoring the most obvious source of this cultural moment? The United States is diversifying incredibly quickly and will only become more diverse in the future. Women who are more educated than ever, Black Americans as well along with various waves of immigrants and their kids who are now in places of relative privilege even vs. 20 years ago. Those people are now trying to empower themselves and helping people who share their experience. This is the American dream in action! The surprise to me is that we hit a cultural tipping point where power structures in the US basically said “We agree!” Anti-woke folks were caught on the back foot and are trying to assert themselves back in the other direction and I believe they will ultimately fail. They use “excess” and “woke BS” as cover imo, “but diversity printer go ‘brrrr’” and so what’s the alternative but to support that integration?
I'm not American and don't live there.
The moment I realized I probably couldn't live there, was when the new CEO of Firefox (the creator of Javascript, not a nobody) was forced to quit because he had supported proposition 8 in California by donating money.
It seemed very unreasonable to me, after all Proposition 8 had won in California, and even Obama said he was against gay marriage at that time. I don't think it's a honest position to be fine with making money from clients with belief A (such as the majority of the population of California in 2008), while thinking that having an employee with that belief should not be tolerated.
An analysis of wokeness that does not mention gender ideology is incomplete.
The police problem doesn’t actually exist. The data shows it doesn’t. The George Floyd situation had nothing to do with race. Woke is just about power and money.