{"id":2398,"date":"2021-10-15T18:48:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-15T18:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/15\/the-core-tenets-of-the-woke-revolution\/"},"modified":"2021-10-15T18:48:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-15T18:48:48","slug":"the-core-tenets-of-the-woke-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2021\/10\/15\/the-core-tenets-of-the-woke-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"The Core Tenets of the ‘Woke’ Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wake up to 'woke' by reading this outstanding piece<\/a> by Bari Weiss.  It is long, but very clear, covers the essential points, includes examples and some suggestions on how to fight back, and last but not least, it receives the MavPhil<\/em> plenary endorsement and nihil obstat<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now I would like to ask any of you who are U. S. citizens and Democrats whether supporting said party makes sense for you and your family and their future and the future of the country. Please consider this question very carefully with an open mind in light of all the facts. Please do not retreat into your private life else you wake up some day soon to no private life at all.  <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Let me offer the briefest overview of the core beliefs of the Woke Revolution, which are abundantly clear to anyone willing to look past the hashtags and the jargon.<\/span><\/p>\n

It begins by stipulating that the forces of justice and progress are in a war against backwardness and tyranny. And in a war, the normal rules of the game must be suspended. Indeed, this ideology would argue that those rules are not just obstacles to justice, but tools of oppression. They are the master\u2019s tools.  <\/span>And the master\u2019s tools cannot dismantle the master\u2019s house.<\/span><\/p>\n

So the tools themselves are not just replaced but repudiated. And in so doing, persuasion\u2014the purpose of argument\u2014is replaced with public shaming. Moral complexity is replaced with moral certainty. Facts are replaced with feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ideas are replaced with identity. Forgiveness is replaced with punishment. Debate is replaced with de-platforming. Diversity is replaced with homogeneity of thought. Inclusion, with exclusion.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this ideology, speech is violence. But violence, when carried out by the right people in pursuit of a just cause, is not violence at all. In this ideology, bullying is wrong, unless you are bullying the right people, in which case it\u2019s very, very good. In this ideology, education is not about teaching people how to think, it\u2019s about reeducating them in what to think. In this ideology, the need to feel safe trumps the need to speak truthfully. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest below the fold:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In this ideology, if you do not tweet the right tweet or share the right slogan, your whole life can be ruined. Just ask Tiffany Riley, a Vermont school principal who was fired\u2014fired\u2014because she said she supports black lives but not the organization Black Lives Matter.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this ideology, the past cannot be understood on its own terms, but must be judged through the morals and mores of the present. It is why statues of Grant and Washington are being torn down. And it is why William Peris, a UCLA lecturer and an Air Force veteran, was investigated for reading Martin Luther King\u2019s \u201cLetter from Birmingham Jail\u201d out loud in class.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this ideology, intentions don\u2019t matter. That is why Emmanuel Cafferty, a Hispanic utility worker at San Diego Gas and Electric, was fired for making what someone said he thought was a white-supremacist hand gesture\u2014when in fact he was cracking his knuckles out of his car window.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this ideology, the equality of opportunity is replaced with equality of outcome as a measure of fairness. If everyone doesn\u2019t finish the race at the same time, the course must have been defective. Thus, the argument to get rid of the SAT. Or the admissions tests for public schools like Stuyvesant in New York or Lowell in San Francisco. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In this ideology, you are guilty for the sins of your fathers. In other words: You are not you. You are only a mere avatar of your race or your religion or your class. That is why third-graders in Cupertino, California, were asked to rate themselves in terms of their power and privilege. In third grade. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In this system, we are all placed neatly on a spectrum of \u201cprivileged\u201d to \u201coppressed.\u201d We are ranked somewhere on this spectrum in different categories: race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. Then we are given an overall score, based on the sum of these rankings. Having privilege means that your character and your ideas are tainted. This is why, one high-schooler in New York tells me, students in his school are told, \u201cIf you are white and male, you are second in line to speak.\u201d This is considered a normal and necessary redistribution of power.<\/span><\/p>\n

Racism has been redefined. It is no longer about discrimination based on the color of someone\u2019s skin. Racism is any system that allows for disparate outcomes between racial groups. If disparity is present, as the high priest of this ideology, Ibram X. Kendi, has explained, racism is present. According to this totalizing new view, we are all either racist or anti-racist. To be a Good Person and not a Bad Person, you must be an \u201canti-racist.\u201d There is no neutrality. There is no such thing as \u201cnot racist.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Most important: In this revolution, skeptics of any part of this radical ideology are recast as heretics. Those who do not abide by every single aspect of its creed are tarnished as bigots, subjected to boycotts and their work to political litmus tests. The Enlightenment, as the critic Edward Rothstein has put it, has been replaced by the exorcism. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What we call \u201ccancel culture\u201d is really the justice system of this revolution. And the goal of the cancellations is not merely to punish the person being cancelled. The goal is to send a message to everyone else: Step out of line and you are next. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It has worked. A recent CATO study found that 62 percent of Americans are afraid to voice their true views. Nearly a quarter of American academics endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences. And nearly 70 percent of students favor reporting professors if the professor says something that students find offensive, according to a Challey Institute for Global Innovation survey.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why are so many, especially so many young people, drawn to this ideology? It\u2019s not because they are dumb. Or because they are snowflakes, or whatever Fox talking points would have you believe. All of this has taken place against the backdrop of major changes in American life\u2014the tearing apart of our social fabric; the loss of religion and the decline of civic organizations; the opioid crisis; the collapse of American industries; the rise of big tech; successive financial crises; a toxic public discourse; crushing student debt. An epidemic of loneliness. A crisis of meaning. A pandemic of distrust. It has taken place against the backdrop of the American dream\u2019s decline into what feels like a punchline, the inequalities of our supposedly fair, liberal meritocracy clearly rigged in favor of some people and against others. And so on.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI became converted because I was ripe for it and lived in a disintegrating society thrusting for faith.\u201d That was Arthur Koestler writing in 1949 about his love affair with Communism. The same might be said of this new revolutionary faith. And like other religions at their inception, this one has lit on fire the souls of true believers, eager to burn down anything or anyone that stands in its way. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

If you have ever tried to build something, even something small, you know how hard it is. It takes time. It takes tremendous effort. But tearing things down? That\u2019s quick work. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Woke Revolution has been exceptionally effective. It has successfully captured the most important sense-making institutions of American life: our newspapers. Our magazines. Our Hollywood studios. Our publishing houses. Many of our tech companies. And, increasingly, corporate America. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Just as in China under Chairman Mao, the seeds of our own cultural revolution can be traced to the academy, the first of our institutions to be overtaken by it. And our schools\u2014public, private, parochial\u2014are increasingly the recruiting grounds for this ideological army. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A few stories are worth recounting:<\/span><\/p>\n

David Peterson is an art professor at Skidmore College in upstate New York. He stood accused in the fevered summer of 2020 of \u201cengaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What was that hateful conduct? David and his wife, Andrea, went to watch a rally for police officers. \u201cGiven the painful events that continue to unfold across this nation, I guess we just felt compelled to see first-hand how all of this was playing out in our own community,\u201d he told the Skidmore student newspaper. David and his wife stayed for 20 minutes on the edge of the event. They held no signs, participated in no chants. They just watched. Then they left for dinner.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the crime of listening,<\/em> David Peterson\u2019s class was boycotted. A sign appeared on his classroom door: \u201cSTOP. By entering this class you are crossing a campus-wide picket line and breaking the boycott against Professor David Peterson. This is not a safe environment for marginalized students.\u201d Then the university opened an investigation into accusations of bias in the classroom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Across the country from Skidmore, at the University of Southern California, a man named Greg Patton is a professor of business communication. In 2020, Patton was teaching a class on \u201cfiller words\u201d\u2014such as \u201cum\u201d and \u201clike\u201d and so forth for his master\u2019s-level course on communication for management. It turns out that the Chinese word for \u201clike\u201d sounds like the n-word. Students wrote the school\u2019s staff and administration accusing their professor of \u201cnegligence and disregard.\u201d They added: \u201cWe are burdened to fight with our existence in society, in the workplace, and in America. We should not be made to fight for our sense of peace and mental well-being\u201d at school.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a normal, reality-based world, there is only one response to such a claim: You misheard. But that was not the response. This was: \u201cIt is simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students,\u201d the dean, Geoffrey Garrett wrote. \u201cUnderstandably, this caused great pain and upset among students, and for that I am deeply sorry.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This rot hasn\u2019t been contained to higher education. At a mandatory training earlier this year in the San Diego Unified School District, Bettina Love, an education professor who believes that children learn better from teachers of the same race, accused white teachers of \u201cspirit murdering black and brown children\u201d and urged them to undergo \u201cantiracist therapy for White educators.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

San Francisco\u2019s public schools didn\u2019t manage to open their schools during the pandemic, but the board decided to rename 44 schools\u2014including those named for George Washington and John Muir\u2014before suspending the plan. Meantime, one of the board members declared merit \u201cracist\u201d and \u201cTrumpian.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A recent educational program for sixth to eighth grade teachers called \u201ca pathway to equitable math instruction\u201d\u2014funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation\u2014was recently sent to Oregon teachers by the state\u2019s Department of Education. The program\u2019s literature informs teachers that white supremacy shows up in math instruction when \u201crigor is expressed only in difficulty,\u201d and \u201ccontrived word problems are valued over the math in students\u2019 lived experiences.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Serious education is the antidote to such ignorance. Frederick Douglass said, \u201cEducation means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free.\u201d Soaring words that feel as if they are a report from a distant galaxy. Education is increasingly where debate, dissent, and discovery go to die.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also very bad for kids.  <\/span>For those deemed \u201cprivileged,\u201d it creates a hostile environment where kids are too intimidated to participate. For those deemed \u201coppressed,\u201d it inculcates an extraordinarily pessimistic view of the world, where students are trained to perceive malice and bigotry in everything they see. They are denied the dignity of equal standards and expectations. They are denied the belief in their own agency and ability to succeed. As Zaid Jilani had put it: \u201cYou cannot have power without responsibility. Denying minorities responsibility for their own actions, both good and bad, will only deny us the power we rightly deserve.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

How did we get here? There are a lot of factors that are relevant to the answer: institutional decay; the tech revolution and the monopolies it created; the arrogance of our elites; poverty; the death of trust. And all of these must be examined, because without them we would have neither the far right nor the cultural revolutionaries now clamoring at America\u2019s gates. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But there is one word we should linger on, because every moment of radical victory turned on it. The word is cowardice<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The revolution has been met with almost no resistance by those who have the title CEO<\/em> or leader<\/em> or president<\/em> or principal<\/em> in front of their names. The refusal of the adults in the room to speak the truth, their refusal to say no to efforts to undermine the mission of their institutions, their fear of being called a bad name and that fear trumping their responsibility\u2014that is how we got here.<\/span><\/p>\n

Allan Bloom had the radicals of the 1960s in mind when he wrote that \u201ca few students discovered that pompous teachers who catechized them about academic freedom could, with a little shove, be made into dancing bears.\u201d Now, a half-century later, those dancing bears hold named chairs at every important elite, sense-making institution in the country. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As Douglas Murray has put it: \u201cThe problem is not that the sacrificial victim is selected. The problem is that the people who destroy his reputation are permitted to do so by the complicity, silence and slinking away of everybody else.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Each surely thought: These protestors have some merit! This institution, this university, this school, hasn\u2019t lived up to all of its principles at all times! We have been racist! We have been sexist! We haven\u2019t always been enlightened! I\u2019ll give a bit and we\u2019ll find a way to compromise. <\/em>This turned out to be as naive as Robespierre thinking that he could avoid the guillotine. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Think about each of the anecdotes I\u2019ve shared here and all the rest you already know. All that had to change for the entire story to turn out differently was for the person in charge, the person tasked with being a steward for the newspaper or the magazine or the college or the school district or the private high school or the kindergarten, to say: No.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If cowardice is the thing that has allowed for all of this, the force that stops this cultural revolution can also be summed up by one word: courage<\/em>. And courage often comes from people you would not expect.<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider Maud Maron. Maron is a lifelong liberal who has always walked the walk. She was an escort for Planned Parenthood; a law-school research assistant to Kathleen Cleaver, the former Black Panther; and a poll watcher for John Kerry in Pennsylvania during the 2004 presidential election. In 2016, she was a regular contributor to Bernie Sanders\u2019s campaign.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maron dedicated her career to Legal Aid: \u201cFor me, being a public defender is more than a job,\u201d she told me. \u201cIt\u2019s who I am.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But things took a turn when, this past year, Maron spoke out passionately and publicly about the illiberalism that has gripped the New York City public schools attended by her four children. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI am very open about what I stand for,\u201d she told me. \u201cI am pro-integration. I am pro-diversity. And also I reject the narrative that white parents are to blame for the failures of our school system. I object to the mayor\u2019s proposal to get rid of specialized admissions tests to schools like Stuyvesant. And I believe that racial essentialism is racist and should not be taught in school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What followed this apparent thought crime was a 21st-century witch hunt. Maron was smeared publicly by her colleagues. They called her \u201cracist, and openly so.\u201d They said, \u201cWe\u2019re ashamed that she works for the Legal Aid Society.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Most people would have walked away and quietly found a new job. Not Maud Maron. This summer, she filed suit against the organization, claiming that she was forced out of Legal Aid because of her political views and her race, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason they went after me is that I have a different point of view,\u201d she said. \u201cThese ideologues have tried to ruin my name and my career, and they are going after other good people. Not enough people stand up and say: It is totally wrong to do this to a person. And this is not going to stop unless people stand up to it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s courage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Courage also looks like Paul Rossi, the math teacher at Grace Church High School in New York who raised questions about this ideology at a mandatory, whites-only student and faculty Zoom meeting. A few days later, all the school\u2019s advisers were required to read a public reprimand of his conduct out loud to every student in the school. Unwilling to disavow his beliefs, Rossi blew the whistle: \u201cI know that by attaching my name to this I\u2019m risking not only my current job but my career as an educator, since most schools, both public and private, are now captive to this backward ideology. But witnessing the harmful impact it has on children, I can\u2019t stay silent.\u201d That\u2019s courage. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Courage is Xi Van Fleet, a Virginia mom who endured Mao\u2019s Cultural Revolution as a child and spoke up to the Loudoun County School Board at a public meeting in June. \u201cYou are training our children to loathe our country and our history,\u201d she said in front of the school board. \u201cGrowing up in Mao\u2019s China, all of this feels very familiar\u2026. The only difference is that they used class instead of race.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gordon Klein, a professor at UCLA, recently filed suit against his own university. Why? A student asked him to grade black students with \u201cgreater leniency.\u201d He refused, given that such a racial preference would violate UCLA\u2019s anti-discrimination policies (and maybe even the law). But the people in charge of UCLA\u2019s Anderson School launched a racial-discrimination complaint into him. <\/em>They denounced him, banned him from campus, appointed a monitor to look at his emails, and suspended him. He eventually was reinstated\u2014because he had done absolutely nothing wrong\u2014but not before his reputation and career were severely damaged. \u201cI don\u2019t want to see anyone else\u2019s life destroyed as they attempted to do to me,\u201d Klein told me. \u201cFew have the intestinal fortitude to fight cancel culture. I do. This is about sending a message to every petty tyrant out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Courage is Peter Boghossian. He recently resigned his post at Portland State University, writing in a letter to his provost: \u201cThe university transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a social justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender and victimhood and whose only output was grievance and division\u2026. I feel morally obligated to make this choice. For ten years, I have taught my students the importance of living by your principles. One of mine is to defend our system of liberal education from those who seek to destroy it. Who would I be if I didn\u2019t?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Who would I be if I didn\u2019t?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

George Orwell said that \u201cthe further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.\u201d In an age of lies, telling the truth is high risk. It comes with a cost. But it is our moral obligation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is our duty to resist the crowd in this age of mob thinking. It is our duty to think freely in an age of conformity. It is our duty to speak truth in an age of lies. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This bravery isn\u2019t the last or only step in opposing this revolution\u2014it\u2019s just the first. After that must come honest assessments of why America was vulnerable to start with, and an aggressive commitment to rebuilding the economy and society in ways that once again offer life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to the greatest number of Americans.<\/span><\/p>\n

But let\u2019s start with a little courage.<\/span><\/p>\n

Courage means, first off, the unqualified rejection of lies. Do not speak untruths, either about yourself or anyone else, no matter the comfort offered by the mob. And do not genially accept the lies told to you. If possible, be vocal in rejecting claims you know to be false. Courage can be contagious, and your example may serve as a means of transmission.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you\u2019re told that traits such as industriousness and punctuality are the legacy of white supremacy, don\u2019t hesitate to reject it. When you\u2019re told that statues of figures such as Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass are offensive, explain that they are national heroes. When you\u2019re told that \u201cnothing has changed\u201d in this country for minorities, don\u2019t dishonor the memory of civil-rights pioneers by agreeing. And when you\u2019re told that America was founded in order to perpetuate slavery, don\u2019t take part in rewriting the country\u2019s history.<\/span><\/p>\n

America is imperfect. I always knew it, as we all do\u2014and the past few years have rocked my faith like no others in my lifetime. But America and we Americans are far from irredeemable. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The motto of Frederick Douglass\u2019s anti-slavery paper, the North Star<\/em>\u2014\u201cThe Right is of no Sex\u2014Truth is of no Color\u2014God is the Father of us all, and all we are brethren\u201d\u2014must remain all of ours.<\/span><\/p>\n

We can still feel the pull of that electric cord Lincoln talked about 163 years ago\u2014the one \u201cin that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Every day I hear from people who are living in fear in the freest society humankind has ever known. Dissidents in a democracy, practicing doublespeak. That is what is happening right now. What happens five, 10, 20 years from now if we don\u2019t speak up and defend the ideas that have made all of our lives possible?<\/span><\/p>\n

Liberty. Equality. Freedom. Dignity. These are ideas worth fighting for.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wake up to 'woke' by reading this outstanding piece by Bari Weiss.  It is long, but very clear, covers the essential points, includes examples and some suggestions on how to fight back, and last but not least, it receives the MavPhil plenary endorsement and nihil obstat. And now I would like to ask any of … Continue reading “The Core Tenets of the ‘Woke’ Revolution”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[388,163,165],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-race-theory","category-leftism-and-political-correctness","category-political-nihilism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2398\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}