Wokeness has no stopping point.

Why wokeness will dissolve everything it touches.

One aspect of woke ideology which flies under the radar is that wokeness has no stopping point. That is, there is no norm, value, idea, concept, expectation, standard, moral, or theory that wokeness will not dissolve, dismantle, deconstruct, and get rid of. What this means is that there is no point at which wokeness stops; it is like an acid that is so powerful that dissolves any container that tries to hold it. As such nothing, not math, not biology, not engineering, not religion, will avoid being obliterated once wokeness gets a hold of it.

There are two reasons that wokeness has no brakes and no stopping point.

The first is that there is an ethical imperative in wokeness which requires the subversion, deconstruction, dismantling, and "calling into question" of any and every narrative, paradigm, ideology, worldview, value set, ethical system, or cultural belief that gains cultural prominence. Anything that becomes the "status quo," is widely accepted in society, or becomes the dominant narrative in society must immediately be subverted, dismantled, deconstructed, challenged or "called into question."

The second reason wokeness has no brakes is that the ideas, concepts, philosophies and theories that make up wokeness will dissolve anything that sets itself up as a boundary, limit, or stopping point.

I will explain both of these points in turn.

1. The moral imperative of Critical Theory.

The moral imperative for wokeness to never stop comes to us from the Brazilian Marxist educator and Critical Theorist Paulo Freire. Freire thought that educators (that is, teachers, including teachers in k-12 public schools) "ideally become partners in this self-emancipation process, contributing to what he sees as a struggle toward perpetual revolution and universal liberation."¹

Freire wanted a "perpetual revolution," a revolution which never ends. Freire thought that as soon as a revolutionary movement came to power it would immediately become the status quo and the dominant power. In order to avoid this, Freire thinks we must always and forever approach the world with "Critical Consciousness" in order to avoid becoming and oppressive dominant hegemony. For Freire and other critical theorists Critical Consciousness is:

"to have taken on a worldview that sees society in terms of systems of power, privilege, dominance, oppression, and marginalization, and that has taken up an intention to become an activist against these problematics. To have developed a critical consciousness is to have become aware, in light of this worldview, that you are either oppressed or an oppressor—or, at least, complicit in oppression as a result of your socialization into an oppressive system."²

The woke theorist is thus morally required to always be looking for oppressive power dynamics and must dedicated to be dismantling, deconstructing, subverting and otherwise challenging anything that becomes the status quo. This means that as soon as some idea, paradigm, convention, ideology, truth claim, or narrative becomes dominant they must immediately begin to interrogate it for anything that might resemble an oppressive power dynamic.

In the woke worldview any form of social, economic, or political inequality is viewed as oppressive, and anything that results in unequal outcomes is necessarily “problematic.” Further, because the woke theorists always think in terms of “systems,” anytime inequality of any kind shows up woke theorists will immediately assert that this inequality is the result of systems of power, privilege, and domination. For this reason they will subvert, dismantle, deconstruct, and challenge any system that allows any inequality of outcome at all.

Because the woke seek absolute social and economic equality of outcome, and because some people will always achieve greater outcomes than other people for a variety of reasons (talent, drive, work ethic, luck, etc) this process of criticism never stops. It goes on indefinitely.

2. The acid of postmodernism.

I very often see people attempt to push back on the claims made by wokeness by attempting to appeal to something that they think is beyond contention, or something they think provides and objective view of the facts in play. They are attempting to put the brakes on wokeness by establishing some objective facts which they think will show that the woke view is wrong. For example, in universities when woke people attempt to say men can give birth people will appeal to biology for a clear definition of what a biological female is. They think that science can settle the issue in an objective way. Another example of this is when woke Christians claim men can become women, non-woke Christians will quote say “we ought to use the Bible to build our ideas about the world” and then quote Genesis 5:2 (“He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created”) in an attempt to establish that Christian doctrine ought to say that men and women are different. So the University professor will attempt to stop the march of wokeness by appealing to scientific facts, and Christians will attempt to stop wokeness by appealing to facts about what the Bible says.

In this example both the Professor and the Christian are attempting to put the brakes on wokeness by using established objective facts (the professor appealing to biological facts, the Christian appealing to facts about what the Bible says) to set a limit on how far wokeness can go. In this way people seek to establish a sort of boundary that wokeness cannot cross.

This won't work, and I'd like to explain why.

The core of woke ideology is thoroughly postmodern, and that means it comes with a set of theories, concepts, and tools which when taken together are capable of dissolving anything.

First off, the postmodern theorist denies the possibility of objectivity. On a postmodern view of the world there is simply no way for anyone to have an objective view of anything. All viewpoints are merely a view from a point. Postmodern thinkers believe is not possible for anyone to get outside of their cultural upbringing and the way they were socialized. As such the biases, interests, and prejudices that everyone must have inevitably make their way into every judgement, decision, appraisal, analysis, observation or evaluation that occurs. This means no one can never arrive at a truly objective account of anything.

On a postmodern view of the world there are no objective interpretations of either language or the world. Everything can be interpreted and understood in a nearly infinite number of ways, and there is no objective way to decide which interpretation is correct. Any statement put forward as a “fact” can be interpreted in any number of different ways. For example most people would view the statement “men are stronger than women” as an objective statement about the average height of men and women. However, the postmodernist could reinterpret that statement and view it as a way of asserting that women are weak with the goal of establishing male dominance. On a postmodern view there is no objective way to decide which interpretation is correct.

Thus, even if we could get a truly objective view of the world (which they believe we cannot) whatever description of the world we provide can be reinterpreted in any number of different ways. It would not be possible to provide an absolute, objective, universal description of anything. Whatever description of the world that we give can be interpreted in many different way and there is no objective way to decide which one of those interpretations ought to be considered “correct.”

The postmodern thinker does not think of truth as “a description of the world which corresponds to reality.” Postmodern thinkers believe that what is true is matter of who gets to decide what is true, and how the get to decide what is true. In other words there are certain people in society who are given the privilege of getting to decide what is true because they have the validity, credibility, legitimacy, social status, and trust that is required to be believed, and thus the things they say are “true” are then accepted as “true” by the society at large. On the postmodern view, a statement becomes “true” because the people in society with the power to decide what is true have said a thing is true. Whether a claim actually matches the world is not what matters. The only way claim X gets to have the status of “true” is when the people in society who have the power to decide what is true have chosen to say that claim X is “true.”

The catch here is that the postmodern person will assert that the people who decide what is true have their own hidden agendas, ulterior motives, cultural biases, and self-interest. As such, the agendas, motives, biases and self interest of those who decide what is true warps their judgement such that when they decide what is true they do so in a way that serves their own interests. Those who dicide what is true only decide that a statement is true when it is in their own interest to do so, or when it aligns with their agenda and motives.

The same goes for knowledge. Knowledge is not a matter of having an awareness of understanding of the way the world really is. For the postmodern thinker knowledge, like truth, is matter of who has the power to decide what counts as knowledge, who is believed, who has credibility, and who has legitimacy. What matters is not what actually corresponds to reality, what matters is who in society gets to decide what counts as knowledge. And, like truth, the people who decide what counts as knowledge do so in a way that benefits themselves and which serves their interests.

To oversimplify the matter for the sake of brevity, the postmodern person thinks that knowledge and power are two features of the same object, and these two features mutually reinforce each other. The people who have power get to decide what counts as knowledge and truth, and the people seen as having knowledge and truth are given additional power. The people who have the power to decide what is true use that position to increase their power, to benefit themselves, to serve their own interests, to maintain their social position, and to increase their social status, social prestige, and clout.

3. Postmodernism and critical theory are one hell of a drug.

The alloy of Critical Theory and postmodernism that we typically call wokeness believes that power dynamics are present in every single situation. There is no social interaction in which power dynamics do not play a role, and there is no social structure, convention, institution, or arrangement which is not permeated by power dynamics. Once the alloy of Critical Theory and Postmodernism comes together it creates a worldview that deconstructs, dismantles, and subverts everything it touches.

Rather then going through all the ways that it does this, I’ll just provide some examples of what it looks like. If you have ever seen woke activists attempt to attack something, you will no doubt recognize the wording and rhetorical moves.

Take for example a couple deciding who should drive to the theater. The average person would see this as a simple matter of trying to figure out which person should drive, and that this can be resolved without one person oppressing the other. The postmodern theorist would say that whoever drives is the one in charge of the vehicle which is a matter of power, that there is a social trope about women being bad drivers that is reinforced when the man drives, and that if the man assumes he ought to pick the woman up that he is assuming that it is his job the lead the date and that is a power move which oppresses the woman by placing her is a subserviant position. Further, postmoderns might say that the patriarchy has created an expectation of male driving in order to reinforce the idea that men should be “in the drives seat” when dating a woman. All of this is, of course, problematic, and must be taken into account when deciding who will be driving.

Here is a another example: When a person claims that a certain person is “beautiful” the woke theorist does not take this as a mere statement of preference. Rather, they would seek to ask: by what standard is the person beautiful, who made the standard, why was the standard made, who benefits from the standard, who gets prestige and clout from being considered beautiful by the standard in question, whose interests are served by the standard of beauty, who is left out of the beauty standard. The question would be asked which groups stand to benefit from being considered beautiful, why are we fixated on beauty, why does beauty matter, what assumptions go into our ideas of what beauty is? The woke activist is going to fixate on the fact that being beautiful increases a persons social status, dating options, prestige, ability to gain clout in social media, ability to gain modeling work, and a host of other advantages.

We could even use a silly example of a truck. You might say you want a new truck. The woke activist will respond with questions and arguments like: why do you want a truck not a car? What is the purpose of the truck? Why do we have individually owned vehicles of transportation and not public transportation. Is the system of private transport a product of capitalism and does privately own transportation reinforce a capitalist ideology?  Trucks are associated with masculinity and the advertisements for the truck contain themes of traditional masculinity while excluding images of gender non-conforming people; thus trucks discourse is transphobic. Is your desire for a truck the product of the advertising agencies which have created a discourse in which trucks are seen as a symbol of strength and power. Does the desire for a truck that is advertised in this way reflect your desire for power? Is the Truck built in a way that is inaccessible to disabled people? Does the truck, with it’s design features for manual labor implicitly privilege manual labor (done by able bodied people) over and above the contributions of the disabled? Does the frequent appearance of pick-up truck in country music mean that the truck is designed for and built for white people while ignoring the needs of Indigenous people and people of color? Trucks are associate with cowboys, and it was cowboys and frontiersman who colonized America at the expense of indigenous people. Thus the truck needs to be decolonized by being redesigned in a way that disassociates it from masculinity, ableism, sexism, transphobia and colonialism.

See how this works?

The Critical Theory and postmodernism work together to create a worldview that cannot in principle be limited. There can’t be any stopping point because on the one hand Critical Theory requires critique to continue endlessly, and on the other hand postmodernism will act as a universal solvent that will dissolve anything that wishes to act as a limit, restriction, check, boundary, cap, or stopping point for wokeness.

4. How do you stop a universal solvent?

So the question is how do we stop the universal solvent from dissolving our entire society and civilization?

The answer to this requires it’s own article, but I will give two brief answers here.

1. Learn the linguistic, social, and rhetorical tactics of wokeness so that you can spot them and disarm them when you see them. Wokeness does not seek to win on the grounds of logical argumentation, or by providing evidence for its assertions. Rather, woke activists win socially by attacking the legitimacy, moral authority, credibility, social status, and public standing of their opponents. They gain control of the conversation and place themselves in the position of being the person in the conversation or debate who is taken seriously, believed, differed to, listened to, and seen as a good person. If you can learn how to combat these tactics you can neutralize them and steer the conversation back towards facts, reason, evidence, logic, and argumentation.

2. The second key is to reject the underlying assumptions and premises of postmodernism that they use to dissolve everything. By pointing out the flaws, errors, and mistake in those underlying assumptions you can show that the conclusions of wokeness are not on solid ground. The key is not to attack the woke person’s credibility, but rather to focus on their assumptions, presuppositions, and underlying premises and show that they are deeply flawed and ought to be rejected for intellectual reasons. Refocus the conversation back towards truth.

Wokeness has no stopping point and it cannot be appeased, satiated, or bargained with. Accepting their worldview and trying to set limits will not work. For that reason you must neutralize the rhetorical tactics and then show the underlying worldview is wrong. If you don’t wokeness will dissolve every aspect of our society and civilization.

Thank you for reading.

Sincerely,

Wokal_distance.

1. Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change," Ed. Henry Jenkins, Gabriel Peters-Lazaro, and Sangita Shresthova. (New York University Press, 2020) p.117

2. https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-critical-consciousness/