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Bi-Weekly Discussion - From "Peak Woke" to "Post-Woke"

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Brian B.
Bi-Weekly Discussion - From "Peak Woke" to "Post-Woke"

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This is going to be an online meetup using Zoom. If you've never used Zoom before, don't worry — it's easy to use and free to join.

Click on the Zoom link below at the scheduled date/time to log in...

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FROM "PEAK WOKE" TO "POST-WOKE"- WHAT WAS "THE GREAT AWOKENING" & IS IT OVER?

INTRODUCTION:

This discussion can be considered a follow-up to an earlier one we had almost 3 years ago in the spring of 2022 entitled "The 'Great Awokening' and CRT Debate". As I explained in the introduction to that meetup, the "Great Awokening" is a term coined by former Vox journalist Matthew Yglesias to refer to a major shift in the political views of white liberals in America since 2014, particularly among those who are young and/or college-educated, towards an increased concern about "social justice" issues, most notably issues of police brutality & racial injustice raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, as well as the plight of refugees and undocumented immigrants amid Trump's "Muslim ban" & family separations at detention facilities, the issues of sexual assault & sexual harassment broached by the #MeToo movement, and an extension of the struggle for gay rights to transgender rights. Yglesias' term is a riff on the "Great Awakenings" - i.e. several major periods of religious revivals & creation of new religious sects that occurred in America at various points in the 18th & 19th centuries. Specifically, he drew an analogy with the "Second Great Awakening" of the 1830s-50s in the Northern & Upper Midwestern states that was closely related to various social reform movements such as temperance, abolition, and women's suffrage.

The "Great Awokening" is related to the new terms "woke" and "wokeness" which indicate an awareness of left-wing social justice concerns. The term "woke" dates back to African-American activists of the 1930s where it meant to be something like "aware of systemic racial oppression", but it was popularized in recent years by the refrain "I stay woke" in Erykah Badu's 2008 song "Master Teacher". This was turned into the "stay woke" slogan by the nascent Black Lives Matter movement in 2014 shortly after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. The term "woke" continued to be used by left-wing activists, journalists & politicians in a positive sense up through Yglesias's coining of the term "Great Awokening" in 2019.

However, "woke" quickly morphed into a pejorative term among conservatives & libertarians who equated it with the annoying self-righteousness of left-wing activists known as "social justice warriors" (SJWs) and the totalitarianism of "cultural Marxists", as well as objectionable phenomena like "virtue signaling", "cancel culture" and "DEI" (diversity-equity-inclusion) initiatives they saw as tantamount to political indoctrination. Several critics noted the similarity of "wokeness" to a new religion for secular progressives that bore a striking resemblance to both Puritanism & Mao's Cultural Revolution. Unfortunately, Fox News pundits began to use the term "woke" to dismiss any sort of left-wing activism or progressive policies even if they had little or no connection to identity politics (e.g. COVID lockdowns, climate change protests), which drained it of any solid meaning for many of their ilder conservative viewers. Many left-wing pundits responded by dropping the term "woke" from regular usage and poking fun at the inability of many "anti-woke" conservatives to even define what precisely they were against.

In the 1st section, we'll look at debates over how to define "wokeness" and whether it connotes a new form of left-wing ideology akin to "racial/sexual Marxism" that's fundamentally at odds with the liberal tradition or merely an extension of liberal concerns about social injustice that rose to prominence in earlier eras of American history like the aforementioned Second Great Awakening, the Progressive Era, and the Civil Rights Era.

In the 2nd section, we'll look at how social scientists have tried to analyze public opinion polls & keyword usage in major media outlets (esp. New York Times), as well as the cyclical nature of past spikes in social justice activism in the 1930s, '60 & '90s to gauge the trajectory of the "Great Awokening". In particular, we'll consider whether Trump's 2024 victory signals the end of this era, or will likely dump more fuel on the fire of left-wing activism.

In the 3rd section, we'll look at how conservative pundits, activists & politicians have reacted to the "Great Awokening". We'll look at the debate over whether or not the 2024 election showed many voters were attracted to the GOP's "war on woke". We'll also look at the more recent debate over whether there's now an influential faction of Christian nationalists within the Trump coalition that deserve to be called the "woke right".

In the 4th section, we'll look at how some centrist/moderate thinkers have proposed a "post-woke" synthesis that could avoid the pitfalls of the woke left & anti-woke right and promote social reforms on a universalist basis instead of divisive identity politics. We'll also look at some conservative critiques of these "post-woke" dreams as politically naive.

RELEVANT MATERIAL FROM OTHER MEETUPS:

Back in July 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Is Social Liberalism Dying?" where we traced the history of American liberalism from FDR to today. In the 4th section, we discussed whether or not the "Great Awakening" and its heavy focus on identity politics signals a break with the classical liberal tradition's focus on universalism & positive-sum politics or its logical extension to tackle current social problems that affect some demographic groups more than others.

In June 2022, we had a meetup entitled "Is Constitutional Conservatism Dying?" where we traced the history of American conservatism from the early opponents of the New Deal to today. In the 3rd & 4th sections, we looked at debates over whether the "West Coast Straussians" at the Claremont Institute and "post-liberal conservatives" like Patrick Deneen & Sohrab Ahmari signal a broader shift within the conservative commitment toward abandoning the classical liberalism emphasis on limited government, civil liberties & individualism.

In Apr. 2022, the Philly Skeptics had a meetup entitled "Is the 'Great Awokening' a Conspiracy?" where they discussed various theories about the origin of "wokeness" that are similar to theories about the social & sexual revolutions of the 1960s that are denounced by some critics as conspiracy theories. Specifically, they discussed: (1) the theory that it's linked to covert forms of Russian subversion, (2) the theory that it's orchestrated by the CIA to push "woke imperialism", (3) the theory that it's linked to the infiltration of "cultural Marxism" in academia, (4) the theory that it's being coopted by major corporations as a means of whitewashing their corporate greed.

Back in Aug. 2020, we had a meetup entitled "Is Cancel Culture a Real Threat?" where we looked at whether attempts to control the social environment through deplatforming, firing & blacklisting people for objectionable speech is harming the "marketplace of ideas". Specifically, we looked at how cancellations have functioned in the debates over Islamophobia & anti-Semitism, trans activism, Black Lives Matter & Critical Race Theory.

Also back in Aug. 2020, the Skeptics had a meetup entitled "Is/Was There a Campus Free Speech Crisis?" that looked at the debates over free speech on college campuses given the spike in deplatforming of conservative speakers between 2015 & 2017, as well some high-profile riots on college campuses. While many liberal pundits like Matt Yglesias, Jesse Singal & Matt Taibbi said they thought this behavior would remain confined to college campuses, in retrospect they've said this now looks like the prelude to the "Great Awokening".

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DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR OUR DISCUSSION:

The videos & articles you see linked below are intended to give you a basic overview of some of the major debates over the meanings of "woke" and the social & political trajectory of the "Great Awokening", i.e. left-wing identity politics & cancel culture, particularly after Trump's 2024 election win. As usual, I certainly don't expect you to read all the articles prior to attending our discussion. The easiest way to prepare for our discussion is to just watch the numbered videos linked under each section - the videos come to about about 54 minutes total. The articles marked with asterisks are just there to supply additional details. You can browse and look at whichever ones you want, but don't worry - we'll cover the stuff you missed in our discussion.

In terms of the discussion format, my general idea is that we'll address the topics in the order presented here. I've listed some questions under each section to stimulate discussion. We'll do our best to address most of them, as well as whatever other questions our members raise. I figure we'll spend about 30 minutes on each section.

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I. DEFINING "WOKE" & ITS RELATIONSHIP TO LIBERALISM, MARXISM & PROTESTANTISM:

1a) David Pakman, "They Don't Even Know What 'Woke' Means" (video - 4:41 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXBiSheGwY

1b) VIivek Ramaswamy, "Defining 'Woke'" (video - 1:31 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpPBCx_vHYA

II. THE SOCIAL & POLITICAL TRAJECTORY OF THE "GREAT AWOKENING"

2.) The Economist, "Woke croaks: 'peak woke' has passed" (video - 50:31 min, listen to 19:10)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgiyucekJYk

III. THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION TO THE "GREAT AWOKENING"

3a) Ian Bremmer, "Will voters care about 'anti-woke' politics in 2024?" (video - 3:59 min.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0FJCsQ03h4

3b) Konstantin Kisin w/ James Lindsay, "What is the Woke Right?" (video - 9:05 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_BcK3PiLtM

IV. CENTRIST COMPROMISE & THE POSSIBILITY OF A "POST-WOKE" SYNTHESIS:

4a) Freddie Sayers w/ Konstantin Kisin, "How The Future is 'Post Woke'" (video - 6:26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXGMqleK8_c

4b) Christopher Rufo, "Why the IDW Fell Apart" (video - 19:54 min, listen to 9:00)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCzxYjqVDvU

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