People are strange "the war on woke" (apparently)
In my spare time, I love reading through academic articles. There was a time when i would hear that someone was an academic and think to myself "wow! this must be a smart person" which, on the face of it, is rather absurd. Going to a university is no guarantee that it will make a dumb person smart. in fact, it very often will make them even dumber.
The other day i came across this article about the British war on woke.
Written mostly by Huw C Davies. He's a researcher at Oxford. But don't let that fool you into thinking he must be really smart then. Because he isn't.
In the abstract, he describes the British war on woke as an intensive, ideological campaign. Odd framing, because its not a campaign by any stretch of the imagination. The founding principle of the University was an exchange of ideas, the hope would be that the better ideas come out on top. it seems Huw is not keen on accepting ideas outside his bubble of cultural Marxism.
Its a battle of good vs evil he opines. Well no. Most people who Huw classes as the leading warriors in this battle against woke are able to see nuance, Huw, clearly cannot.
However. along with his research assistant Huw has identified the Warriors and he will be accusing them of using Van Dijks concept of the ideological square. the concept doesn't really fit, The ideological square is basically a framework built around thought process. I can't help but think Davies has just read about the ideological square and was very keen to use the concept somewhere, so he shoehorned it into this article. Irony, the ideological square fits "wokism" perfectly.
But than Davies goes on to say that the logical base argument for the war on woke is the British "white" working class.
So even in the abstract, we have claims of racism. The irony here is that the British white working class normally find themselves on the receiving end of the "woke" argument. This is just repackaged CRT praxis. An unbiased researcher, Davies clearly isn't. I'm sure there will be plenty of examples throughout the rest of this article.
One thing I've noticed among the activist class is the burning desire to ensure they are the ones who label everything. This is an essential building block the far left regularly employs in its bid to frame all argument exactly the way they want it framed. Davies is a prime example.
"Wokeness" is essentially a pseudo-religion. Davies doesn't like this framing. In fact, he spends the opening 3 chapters complaining about it. Its relentlessly dull
Recently, a group of academics and cultural commentators have framed wokeness as a pseudo-religion
This framing was resurrected by American academic John McWhorter and developed into a full ‘taxonomy’ of ‘woke religion’ by Michael Shellenberger and Peter Boghossian
In 2021, this framing was voiced on UK television by Professor Eric Kaufmann who told his host, Andrew Doyle, on GB News that wokeism involved the ‘sacralization of historically marginalised out [sic] race, sexual and gendered identity groups’
One of Kaufmann’s collaborators, Professor Matthew Goodwin, developed this definition further on Twitter
Subsequently, a community has coalesced around this pseudo-religious definition of wokeism, and within this community
When people are pushed to define what woke or wokism means. Why is Davies so upset when the question is emphatically answered? the answer is simple. He doesn't actually want the answer, he wants them to adopt the answer he decides
This is not how debate, or democracy works.
However, woke and wokeism are not empirically established concepts
Strawman argument. Nobody claims that it is
Anti-woke campaigners use platforms that also espouse the benefits of global warming and fossil fuel production
Guilt by association. Another far left tactic. Davies is definitely much more activist than he is researcher..
This article explains how, via a denial of structural racism.
You cant deny something that doesn't exist, but its a very telling comment by Davies here. If you deny "his" argument, then you are wrong. No debate, no counter points allowed and no nuance. You could say, the sentence is "woke"
We begin this explanation by describing how this pseudo-religious frame has become the latest attempt to intellectualise a moral panic about perceived leftwing cultural hegemony.
The latest attempt? Alrighty then! The problem that Davies and other woke warriors like him, is there is no keeping the genie in its bottle any more. The rise of social media has seen an unprecedented access to current affairs and historical documents. While many intellectuals are indeed speaking out against left wing cultural hegemony and are the spearhead. People can see with their own eyes and unfolding in real time what is actually going on. Perceived? Pah! Its actually happening, and Davies is sulking.
In the latter half of the last decade, the British rightwing press began using woke pejoratively to target progressive politics and public figures.
Yes, yes they did
The Daily Mail initially began discussing wokeness broadly by co-opting it into its scathing treatment of other celebrities, media creatives and so-called ‘politically correct’ comedians.
Thankfully, again yes
This form of woke was framed as something performative, inauthentic, self-righteous, self-indulgent and practised by privileged individuals.
That's because it is
For decades before this moral panic about wokeness, the American far Right was developing its theory of Cultural Marxism
The Frankfurt school literally wrote books about it. Normal academics read the books and developed an opinion. Again Davies expresses his dislike for liberal democracy and the debating of ideas. There are only one group of ideas that should be adopted.......His!
Cultural Marxism was once the default alternative to political correctness that the British mainstream Right used to describe perceived leftwing cultural hegemony.
"Perceived" Davies likes using this word, he likes it a lot.
Cultural Marxism offered the putative mainstream Right an ostensibly intellectual and historical explanation of perceived leftwing cultural hegemony that political correctness failed to capture.
There it is again. Cultural Marxism wasn't offered. It was handed on a plate. If you're going to claim something, then deny that something. Then you perhaps shouldn't have written it down in the first place.
[The use of the term] Cultural Marxism was still in mainstream circulation in 2019
And long may it continue.
Marc Sidwell, a Senior Fellow at the New Culture Forum (based at 55 Tufton Street) writing for the IEA, argued that modern wokeism had its origins in the Frankfurt School which sought to ‘tear down Western economic and social norms through a “long march” to capture key cultural institutions’
Also known as Maoism. You see how Davies has included the address (55 Tufton Street) More on that later.
Braverman received enough public criticism to show that there is at least some social cost to using this theory because of its associations with the far Right and its antisemitic and conspiratorial connotations.
And thus proving the left wing cultural hegemony. Lets be clear "Cultural Marxism" Is neither far right nor antisemitic. These are just lazy tropes adopted by the far left.
Therefore, to corporate woke-washing, celebrity wokeness and ‘elite Remainers’ we can add a moral panic about CRT coming from the US and the clear need for a seemingly intellectual explanation of leftwing cultural hegemony to replace Cultural Marxism that fulfils the same purpose.
A clear need? Obviously not. Many black people reject the concept of CRT. As well should anyone. It was actually developed by self avowed Marxists. One might call them "Cultural Marxists"
claimed that CRT was an ideological agenda that threatened to undermine British race relations.
Which it clearly is and is obviously doing. CRT is a political position dressed up as a moral one.
Besides the event where Kaufmann spoke, we have the Daily Mail and many other rightwing outlets such as The Express and The Spectator regularly commissioning academics and writers from Spiked to say CRT was entering British schools to brainwash children and turn black children against white
And here lies another "Genie out of the bottle" problem for Davies. proof of the dangers of CRT is literally everywhere. Panic isn't coming top down, it's bottom up.
The anti-woke movement is a public campaign seeking to influence public opinion
Actually no. It's prominent public figures pointing at the far left and critiquing how dangerous their unchecked ideas have gotten. They also help the wider public make sense of some of the insanity they are seeing and witnessing. with their own eyes.
Davies then goes on to identify the "antiwoke" and where they express their opinions. Its all rather yawnsome to be honest. This is more a smear piece than an academic article now.
There is no public data available to establish who funds anti-woke think-tanks
Actually there is. Davies knows that a lot of funding is grass-roots, a lot is from conservative donors, via office space (55 tufton Str) and small donations toward local events involving numerous guest speakers.
The problem facing Davies, is that there is no grand conspiracy going on here. There is nothing to hide, yet still he digs.
One of their key roles in the war on woke is to provide a vehicle for publishing conservative academics’ views.
Another problem for Davies. Many speakers are not in the least bit conservative. Many of these panels involve both left and right speakers. The problem here, is that left wing speakers are very often unable to provide a good counter argument or indeed raise any pertinent points. So that must sting the far left a bit.
If you can't find a decent argument against a position, the answer is to either keep looking or admit you're wrong. Only in an authoritarian state would the answer be to shut it down. I get that this would be Davies preferred strategy.
Davies then goes on to name organisations that do provide spaces for critical thinkers. Now we have an oxymoron,
"Its not known who funds this, but here is a list of people and organisations that do"
Okay then.
It is entirely logical that donors to think-tanks, Spiked and GB News share a political outlook
We don't know who these donors are, except we do.
Bear in mind, Davies is an academic from Oxford.
The paradox is neutralised for this community by building what van Dijk calls an ‘ideological square’ whereby its members represent themselves positively and their out-group negatively
Yes, i did read up on the ideological square. In a strange quirk I immediately thought of wokeism. Because this is exactly what the far left does.
The pushback against "wokeness" is essentially a call for rationality, to actually be able to debate. Davies repeatedly fails to see this. He goes on to include climate change denial and anti-vaxxers in this increasingly bizarre article.
Nobody is denying that climate changes and continues to change. Very few are denying that humans have had any impact. But, to be able to debate how much of an impact is a fundamental principle behind the creation of the liberal west.
The same is true for anti-vaxxers. the vast majority of people are not against vaccines. they are however raising very pertinent points. After all, it was rolled out with astonishing speed and anyone who dared to raise even the most obvious of questions was quickly shut down and derided as a conspiracy theorist.
Maybe, just possibly. The vaccine wasn't as safe and effective as was first claimed. Was wearing a mask really in any way effective? (not least of all peoples failure to wear them properly, especially children)
The more you try and shut down even the most common sense of questions, the more questions you will invite. When a doctor, live on Tv says that taking the vaccine means you 100% wont get covid, nor pass it on (which was clearly not true) people will raise an eyebrow.
Yet Davies ignores all of this. He doesn't want any debate to stray from "the message"
This is not to say that people on the right are always nuanced and balanced. But in lumping them all together, in one big "far right" anti-woke backlash, is immature.
As Myers says, ‘net-zero policies are an attack on the working class
Well, technically he's correct, the people most affected by net zero will be the working class, because they're the ones least likely to be able to afford it.
Within the ideological square, white working-class children are the end of the anti-woke victim scale. Within the anti-woke community, establishing white working-class children as victims of the woke begins by suggesting class disadvantage has something to do with whiteness
Wrong again, this is yet another strawman. yet more irony. Davies, firmly entrenched in his own ideological square projects that onto the "anti woke" movement.
Goodwin writes of the shameful taboo of white working-class boys’ underachievement, concluding the government should be supporting ‘left-behind whites
And the facts bear out, white, working class boys are increasingly getting left behind. If that wasn't bad enough. they are then castigated as the most privileged group in the country. Left out of mainstream debate, discriminated against in University placements and job opportunities yet still they have to suffer the chronic attacks on them simply because they are white and male. All the evidence points to exactly this. I cant understand how Davies cannot see it.
According to this logic, CRT teaches them to be ‘hostile to Britishness and symbols of British identity, thereby ‘destroying the foundational values of British culture
Which it very clearly does
Therefore, systemic and institutional explanations for disadvantage are, in this thinking, reserved for whites
It doesn't claim this at all. It's merely pointing out the irony and hypocrisy behind CRT and the whole cultural Marxist woke movement.
When and where the anti-woke concede that the far Right does exist, they claim it is a fringe movement with little influence
In Britain, this is certainly the case, and the point is never actually conceded. I've yet to meet anyone who claims the far right doesn't exist.
When they are accused of extremism, the anti-woke respond combatively, take offence and once again advance their moral credentials and delegitimise their opponents by arguing that calling any anti-woke tropes ‘far right’ is ‘hyperbole’ that ‘trivialises fascism and insults ordinary voters
No, they mostly just laugh. Seriously, you can't keep chucking the term "far right" about. It's embarrassing. Similar to labelling everything you don't want to debate as a "culture war" These tactics really should be left in the High School debating room. It's not how mature adults (especially academics) should be talking.
The anti-woke community therefore also relies on conspiracies to explain political events. In October 2022 then Prime Minister Truss appointed a new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, to help reassure the financial markets that her government had a credible economic policy. The Conservative Party subsequently removed Liz Truss from her role as its leader. On both occasions, the anti-woke community again laid claim to a special insight into the dark, powerful forces at work that normal people were unable to identify.
This is insane. The bank of England deliberately screwed Truss over. It's as simple as that. Normal people were able to identify this because smart people told them.
(dark forces. I'm still chuckling at this)
Davies then goes on to talk about globalism against nationalism. I fail to understand his point here. There is a globalist movement and there is also a nationalist movement.
Maybe he doesn't like the framing? I don't know what else to think. I don't know what point he's trying to make here.
Robinson also argues that, as British birth rates are on the decline while immigration is increasing, ‘unless Brits start making families again, Britain will be a very different place culturally, ethnically, religiously’. He adds, ‘in a matter of years we are looking at the inevitable replacement of British culture’
Which we will. Again, I'm not seeing Davies point. a policy of massive, unvetted, mass immigration for cheap labour to prop up GDP will see a very different culture emerge.
While, Robinson doesn’t refer to whiteness in this instance, he went on to say ‘Enoch [Powell] was right’, because ‘diversity means fewer white people
It does, again, evidence is literally everywhere!
Prominent anti-woke campaigner and author of The War on the West Douglas Murray similarly mobilises whiteness when he implies ‘we’
Again, Douglas is right. We (as in British people) were never asked if they wanted mass immigration
"whiteness" Is a far left trope to stigmatise and attack white people for being white without sounding racist.. It's a far left con trick.
This exclusionary framing echoes the Great Replacement Theory, a far-right conspiracy theory warning that an indigenous European population is being replaced by non-European immigrants
Actually, no it doesn't
The discursive construction of in-group victimisation is the key to the ‘replacement’ conspiracy. By producing a common ‘us’ (indigenous British, white people) as victims of the actions and plans of traitorous politicians
Well, this would be correct, Brits consistently vote against mass immigration and the elected government consistently ignores them.
Anti-woke campaigners claim to be fighting powerful dark forces, not for their own ideological interests, but on behalf of a victimised, manipulated, neglected and patriotic white working class
Well this is compete bollocks. but lets be nice. What we have here, is yet another strawman argument from Davies.
The ideological square produces an apparent paradox within which the defenders of democracy, rationality and liberal values are using tropes associated with far-right anti-democratic movements
Only if you're a far left activist, just because Davies wants to label something, doesn't then mean it is true
No-one in this community identifies as far Right nor have any of them rejected democratic processes
Well gee, I wonder why that is...
"This community’s claim it supports democracy while using far-right tropes"
Claiming something is a far right trope, is in itself, a far left trope.
Many members of this community can be described as professional reactionaries, whose opinions create a space within which liberal and illiberal racism is indistinguishable
They could also be described as critical thinkers.
However, the scale and intensity of this community’s relentless campaign suggests it has little confidence in its audience’s commitment to the war on woke. The anti-woke community is particularly anxious about the future. The solution for leading members of the community is to intervene in education to influence future generations.
The irony here is epic. Talk about accusing others of doing the exact thing you're doing, this is astonishing frankly.
In 2022, Furedi told the CPAC conference in Hungary organised by Victor Orbán’s regime that ‘taking over the schools and winning the battle for the minds of young people is really quite important’
Something the far left have been doing for decades. It's little wonder that non activists also recognise this.
Hungary’s president, Victor Orbán, is a rightwing extremist
He's simply right wing, calling him extremist is far left propaganda.
Finally, we move onto the conclusion.
The central moral justification for the war on woke is that it represents the interests of the working class.
Depends on ones definition of working class. Given that the vast majority of people in Britain are working class, the war on woke can be defined as representing the interests of the vast majority of British people and I'm ok with that.
However, in constructing its ideological square, this community refuses the possibility that as well as white manual labourers and retirees, the working class can include people from any ethnic background, including immigrants.
This is so wide of the mark I wouldn't know where to begin.
By constructing ‘the working class as white’ the anti-woke community pits whites ‘against racialised minorities and immigrants, who are denied working class status’
Davies should be utterly embarrassed with this claim.
However, even if this group did consider the working class in all its ethnic, cultural and intellectual diversity, it would be irrelevant because, beyond far-right tropes, it offers no policy framework to deliver economically credible and environmentally sustainable solutions to any form of structural inequality including and especially class.
They're not a political party. The idea is to debate ideas, not to create government policy.
If it were a grass-roots campaign for the working classes, the anti-woke community would be transparent in its finances, reject strategic investments from anonymous wealthy donors, argue the effects of climate breakdown will disproportionately affect the world’s poor and working classes, and it would lobby for wealth redistribution and a green revolution in high-skilled jobs.
They don't claim to be a grass roots campaign for the working classes.......yet another strawman!
They say this internal threat wants to bring down ‘western civilisation’, beginning at its centre by betraying Britain’s historic heroes, infecting Britain’s institutions, polluting British culture and making disadvantaged children ashamed of their whiteness, their culture and country.
Yes, lets hope they win.
Article ends
I'm completely flabbergasted to be honest. It's not often i see so much rubbish spouted in a single article.
Davies frames an argument which doesn't even exist, then attacks the non-existent argument with gusto.
Littered with far left tropes and buzzwords, its a textbook example of starting at the end of your argument and working backwards. This is not how a proper researcher works, this is how an activist works.
The essence of Davies theory is "anti woke" is actually anti black and pro white. Disregarding the huge amount of people of colour who are very much anti woke, Davies has what is commonly known as white savior complex.
This article should be taken outside and shot.
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