During the last two years, I’ve personally met quite a few people who loathe the woke movement. They complain about it incessantly and see its wicked influence everywhere. If the woke are for it, they’re reflexively against it.
If the woke movement did not exist, all of these people would obviously be doing something else. They’d probably still be obsessive and negative, but they wouldn’t be daydreaming about wiping woke ideology off the surface of the Earth. Should we therefore say that such people constitute a “backlash” to wokism? Should we conclude that the woke movement is sowing the seeds of its own demise? Would the woke movement have been more successful if it had pursued the path of moderation?
My answer: No on all counts. Yes, the woke movement has sparked resistance. Virtually every movement does. But so what? The momentous question is rather: Has the woke movement sparked enough resistance to make the entire movement self-defeating? The answer, of course, is: What used to be called “political correctness” is succeeding by leaps and bounds. Not just on the news; even the most apolitical people I know have been dragooned into cultish on-the-job struggle sessions (via zoom, of course).
Still, there’s a fair follow-up: Has the woke movement sparked enough resistance to even make the movement’s marginal efforts self-defeating? And the answer to this is at most a definite maybe. Yes, going after Dr. Seuss might be a bridge too far; the woke movement is indeed stirring up a hornet’s nest. But even this petty tyranny could well work out for them. Fear is one of the woke movement’s chief weapons – and successfully toppling a harmless and popular cultural icon is a fine way to spread fear. How many people witnessed this moral panic and shivered, “If they can cancel Seuss, they can cancel me“?
While you could just define even the slightest resistance as “backlash,” that makes the whole concept trivial. Alternately, you could equivocate between the trivial and momentous definitions to confuse the weak-minded (possibly yourself included). The wise route, however, is to decide how bad the woke movement really is. And if you think it’s bad enough, strive to transform mere resistance into full-blown backlash.
READER COMMENTS
Gary Lowe
Jun 23 2021 at 2:15pm
I work in the Silicon Valley for a large tech firm (~30,000 employees) that is not one of the ones in the press all of the time. As far as I can tell, they are handling wokeness and diversity in the same corporate manner that sexual harassment was dealt with when I first started working in 1989. That is, we get some watered down online course that we have to click through once a year, we “celebrate diversity” with non-mandatory speakers, etc. but at the end of the day, nothing has really changed.
So, if you are worried that when Google or Facebooks does something everyone else falls in line, I doubt that will happen broadly.
Gabriel Hermanauticus
Jun 23 2021 at 6:08pm
While I appreciate your sharp commentary on recent cultural trends and advocacy for open borders, I would be genuinely curious to hear your perspective on how large scale immigration affects the spread of woke ideology. To me it seems pretty clear that without immigration, wokeness would be so politically radioactive that nobody associated with it could ever win a major election in the US.
Your book on open borders makes a persuasive case that immigrants are not particularly left wing on an issue-by-issue basis, but I don’t think it addresses this question in sufficient detail. In nearly wealthy every country immigrants vote for liberal parties in disproportionate numbers (unless they immigrate to escape communism), so in the absence of large scale immigration to the US over the past forty years, there would not be a political base for the kind of democratic party that currently dominates cultural life across all major institutions. Although there would still be a political fringe of people we would call “woke,” they would not get political cover from (possibly unwoke) immigrants and their children who reflexively vote for liberals until their income per capita rises to match the native population.
If the demographic balance of the US had been fixed to its pre-1965 proportions, there would be serious political consequences for anyone who appears “woke.” However, immigration has disabled a major electoral feedback loop that keeps this in check and allows woke-enabling politicians to remain in office even if their positions are extremely unpopular among the legacy native population
Niko Davor
Jun 24 2021 at 1:01pm
Caplan and the open borders crowd have addressed this issue extensively: the impact of recent immigration on politics. They downplay or dismiss the argument you make, that wokism wouldn’t have happened without the impact of recent immigration on politics. They highlight that much of the ultra-left social justice types are white, legacy citizens. I don’t find these arguments at all persuasive or even serious. Caplan is so committed to open borders that he will downplay even reasonable negatives. It would be better if someone could make a more convincing argument about this issue.
Phil H
Jun 23 2021 at 8:58pm
Just the facts, ma’am check:
“If they can cancel Seuss…”
Dr Seuss was not cancelled. Two of his books are no longer printed.
JL
Jun 24 2021 at 2:09pm
Six Seuss books cancelled:
And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street
If I Ran the Zoo
McElligot’s Pool
On Beyond Zebra!
Scrambled Eggs Super! and
The Cat’s Quizzer”
Mark Bahner
Jun 25 2021 at 12:57pm
Since it was the estate of Dr. Seuss who stopped the printing of the six books, the proper term would be more like “self-cancelled.”
Estate of “Dr. Seuss” stops publishing of 6 books
Zeph
Jul 8 2021 at 8:18pm
If the elimination of those six titles had come out of nowhere, this might be a serious argument.
However, the books by Dr Suess were already under serious attack before the estate chose to eliminate those books, including his most popular and best-selling titles.
By publicly renouncing six of their more problematic / less prominant titles, the estate appears to have tried to acknowledge and diffuse the attack, while hoping to still continue publishing their best sellers. Time will tell whether that is successful, but at the minimum I think it bought them time.
By your reasoning, almost every asserted “cancellation” is a self-cancelation, as a company, university, gallery or whatever still makes the decision to implement the demands of the crowd. Whether we think that’s good or bad, it’s different than an uncoerced internal decision.
One thing which often distinguishes these cases: if the organization does it quietly, it may be for internal reasons; if they make a big public display of highlighting their action and distancing themselves from an exaggerated moral taint (eg: “repugnant to the values of our organization”), it’s more likely due to external pressure from activists whom they hope to propitiate. The press release is pretty revealing in most cases.
Alexander Turok
Jun 24 2021 at 3:02pm
Your disagreement with Caplan is not on the facts of what happened to Suess’s books. It’s merely that you dispute whether “cancelled” means what people customarily use it for.
Mark Young
Jun 25 2021 at 6:13pm
Do people customarily use the word “cancelled” to refer to a situation where a decision is made to no longer print a book? Do people say that C.S. Lewis has been cancelled? Do people say that Stephen King has been cancelled?
Alexander Turok
Jun 25 2021 at 8:44pm
When it’s motivated by ideology rather than lack of demand for the books, yes.
We need to have a “use it or lose it” law for copyrights. If a corporation doesn’t want to print a book and sell it for a reasonable price, it doesn’t have to, but it will forfeit the right to prevent others from doing so.
Robin Gaster
Jul 1 2021 at 6:19pm
so authors should no longer be allowed to withdraw their books from publication?
Niko Davor
Jun 24 2021 at 6:17am
Great article. The woke movement has been wildly successful. Opposition has been ineffective.
I’d like to hear about what can be done to form effective opposition.
Eric Johnson
Jul 1 2021 at 2:12pm
I see orders of magnitude more anti-woke whining than I see people preaching a woke ideology.
Zeph
Jul 8 2021 at 8:38pm
It depends on where you look and where you work. Some people rarely encounter it to date, others are immersed in it every day. One size doesn’t fit all.
One of the most valuable interpretations I’ve heard of “privilege” is the idea that just because your lived experience doesn’t include certain traits, you should not dismiss or demean the lived experiences of others as automatically invalid. (Exactly one of many diversity trainers I’ve encountered made this association of concepts; it’s not typical but I think it’s valuable advice in many contexts).
Labeling criticism or disagreement as “whining” is an example of demeaning; it’s a cheap shot because ANYBODY on any side of any issue can easily so characterize any complaint. See also Russell’s conjunction.
Anyway, if you have rarely encountered woke culture, more power to you and good luck for the future. I hope it continues that way.
Comments are closed.