I have been agonizing about what the anti-wokeness complaints and critiques are all about. What about “woke” is offensive or problematic? To be “woke” means to be “awake” to the danger of racist discrimination, that is all. That is how the word has functioned since at least the 1920s, until it became more popularized in the 2000s.
Now, the term seems to have adopted a more general meaning of being in tune with whatever is considered to be social justice. That is not necessarily a big departure, even though it may be seen as yet another case where an African-American cultural concept is appropriated by mainstream culture and altered in its meaning. In a way, the idea of being “awake”, to wake up from dangerous illusions about the world, is not new — you can find it in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and in Christian thought about seeing the truth, just as in 1 Corinthians 13:11.
Basically, being “woke” means to (1st) recognize where in our reality we find injustice, discrimination, (undeserved) inequality, inequity, oppression, or, in other words, sin against humanity and against justice itself — and (2nd) to work against it, wherever it may be located — within yourself, in others, in society. “Wokeness” is a primary constituent of any religion that claims to bring about justice and fight against sin.
Now, we may have different understandings of what “sin” exactly means. The biblical understanding — which can only really mean the original Jewish understanding — is that sinning means to be missing the mark, and in consequence, that you should try to do better next time. The notion of “sin” is not about good or evil, it is about failure, fallibility, imperfection, the very nature of humanity. Just as the definition of divinity is that of undefinable, unreachable, non-temporal, non-localizable perfection, the idea of humanity is that of definable, concrete, temporal, localized imperfection. Humankind is “fallen” because we are not gods — and we are fallible because everything in creation, everything in the universe, is fallible. The recognition of our own fallibility — ideally — should lead to humility, grace, and kindness. In some, it can, sadly, lead to denial — especially in the case of one’s own fallibility — and in the case of the fallibility of others, in shaming, blaming, othering, demonizing, discrimination, etc. The difficulty of religion is similar to the difficulty of philosophy: It is sadly too easy to gain only a superficial understanding of it, and especially, if it occurs as only partial education (what Adorno decries as “Halbbildung” – “half education” — the partial education of those who just want to learn what is immediately useful instead of thinking things through in a critical manner).
(I must admit, it took some learning on my part to fully understand what “sin” actually means — sometimes, when you grow up, it would be nice to actually have priests in your life that actually know how to do correct exegesis and critical theology. Dividing the world into saints and sinners is simply rather unproductive and misleading — we are all sinners, because none of us is perfect. Humility, grace, forgiveness, etc.)
Now, why the religious detour? Let’s see. Where does the resistance against “wokeness” come from most frequently?
There is resistance against the following – among others:
- anti-racism (with connected ideas of white supremacy, white fragility, intersectionality)
- statement of bias, whether implicit or explicit
- non-discrimination of women, specifically against the possibility of equal roles for women and men
- the idea that biological sexual differences always have cultural components (gender), and that thus there could be more ideas of gender than just male/female
- non-discrimination of lesbians and gays
- non-discrimination of transgender individuals, or “transgenderism” as an idea
- aspects of modernity that have pushed out “traditional” values
- ANY more societal focus on these issues rather than an individualized depoliticized approach (e.g. someone may absolutely not be an (explicit) racist in the sense that they do not wish harm on others different from them and even get along with them and may do everything to support others — but they may be (implicitly) biased against others due to the structures they were born and socialized into, where we all may be part of systems that replicate past racism that has become institutionalized, or structuralized). The individualized depoliticized approach lays the blame on the individual (oftentimes wrongly so), where the systemic and socio-political approach lays the blame on the system — a mixture of history, politics, policy, socioeconomics, literature, culture, tradition, etc. It makes a difference whether you call somebody a sinner, or whether you say that the world itself is sinful, and the individual is caught up in it willy-nilly.
- Several political issues seen as “progressive” or “left”: climate change (which should also be a conservative issue — it is about conserving the planet), housing, immigration, meting out justice, education, foreign policy, etc. Not everything that claims to be “woke” is necessarily woke.
Now, some of the critique actually does come from a traditionalist religious background. I would argue that pertains to 2 complexes: race (because especially Christianity and Islam claim that such discrimination has been overcome within the respective religion), and gender (because the “woke” understanding of sin clashes with the traditionalist understanding of sin which sees feminism ad LGBTQ+ as from the devil — I may exaggerate even so slightly).
The resistance against “wokeness” in film, television and culture also ties in to a cult of rugged masculinity, which sees any inklings of feminism or queer liberation as somewhat “unmanly.” See Gamergate.
In politics, you are either with John Wayne, or you are a sissy. You either echo the Duke, like done by Gibbs on NCIS countless times (Rule #6: “never apologize, it’s a sign of weakness”), or you are DiNozzo and get head-slapped for not being manly enough. The right stuff. When men were men, etc. (We’re just leaving out the vulnerable bits that would make them into actual human beings.) Just as described by Tony Soprano:
“Gary Cooper. Now there was an American! The strong, silent type. He did what he had to do! He faced down the Miller gang when none of those assholes in town would lift a finger to help him! And did he complain? Did he say ‘Oh, I come from this poor Texas Irish illiterate f*cking background or whatever the f*ck, so leave me the f*ck of it, because my people got f*cked over!”
The Sopranos ep. 4.10 “The Strong, Silent Type”
That seems to be about to cover. Doesn’t it? Wokeness bad because of John Wayne and Gary Cooper and idealized tradition and masculinity and lack of empathy? Is that it?
“Wokeness” is not cool because we are not supposed to care because that is … weak?
Maybe.
Stay woke, everyone, in humility and kindness.
This is part I of a series. I will be addressing several objections to “wokeness” in separate following posts.
Part II: #249: The Resistance Against Wokeness, Part II: Addressing Religious Objections
Erratic Attempts 