What is Wokeism?


Wokeism aims to be a movement of vigilance regarding systemic discrimination against historically penalized groups in Western societies. The situation of minorities and women had progressed considerably in the West over the last few centuries and decades (the same cannot be said for much of the rest of the world), systemic discrimination had in fact disappeared, and equality of rights had been achieved. But equality of result had not been achieved. For the woke movement, the reason had to be that our societies were in fact horribly discriminatory and intolerant. Woke’s approach to fight against alleged systemic discrimination took the Marxist model and generalized it. What’s more, this “defense of minorities and women” is based on new theories/ideologies associated with a new vocabulary. In Marxism, humanity is first divided into “privileged/oppressors” and “victims/oppressed”. This is also the case in Wokeism, but both the category of “privileged” (which included bosses and property owners) and that of “oppressed” (which included wage earners and tenants) have been broadened.

Among the privileged/oppressors, we now also find: men, white Westerners, Christians/Jews, heterosexuals, cisgender people...
Among the victims/oppressed, we now also find: women, non-whites, members of all other faiths, homosexuals, transgender people...

Then a number of axioms, which we’d need to analyze in depth, are applied. Here are four of them:

One-way violence;
One-sided suffering;
Zero-sum game;
Primacy of equality of result over equality of rights.

The whole causes resentment. Here’s a video from an old humorous French pravda that illustrates the zero-sum game: Link. In this video, Laurence Parisot is in tears because she wasn’t reappointed president of the MEDEF (employers’ association). To defend her record, she explains how much “workers” in France are… in trouble. The description, extremely dark, obviously has no connection with reality. Her final sentence is particularly evocative: “If workers are so much in trouble, it’s proof that I’ve well defended the interests of employers!” So the better some people are, the worse the others are, and vice versa (a zero-sum game), Marxists can’t imagine that the two sides can be fine or in trouble together. In Marxism/Wokeism, if the “privileged” are in trouble, we should even rejoice, because it means that the situation of the others is improving.


Among the new theories/ideologies on which Wokeism is based are:

Critical Race Theory;
Gender Theory (“Gender is a social construct”);
Transgender Ideology (see my article My transgender approach, my rejection of transgender ideology).

Note: For the Woke Left, these theories/ideologies, as well as, increasingly, Wokeism as a whole, among others, “don't exist” and are merely rumors, far-right conspiracy theories. In countries/regions where the Woke Left is well established, this claim is taken up in official discourse. It is then impossible to talk about these new ideas, let alone name them.

A very serious effect of Wokeism is that it creates or aggravates resentment, firstly towards the so-called “privileged”, and then in turn in both directions. It tears society apart and can even lead to civil war. In particular, it contributes to the resurgence of a true extreme Right where it was on the way out. Violence is not a one-way street, nor is suffering one-sided. There are situations where society treats women better than men, and contexts where it is men who are disadvantaged. Anti-white racism exists. Property owners can find themselves in dramatic situations because of tenants or squatters. The desire to achieve equality of result at all costs leads to discrimination, which are, this time, actually systemic. Fighting injustice always requires activism in both directions; activism in only one direction has a deleterious effect on society.

Another flaw of Wokeism is its immense dogmatism. “Fascism” accusation is used in every possible way to destroy individuals who have a different (sometimes slightly different) opinion on a subject. In this religion, evil is the far Right, the Devil is Hitler, and this Devil is seen everywhere. Anyone labelled a “fascist” loses his or her status as a human being, and all violence is permitted against them. Thus, RadFems, who belong to a current of feminism that rejects Transgender ideology and is concerned about its effect on the situation of women, are considered “fascists”: their addresses are published, they receive insults and death threats, some lose their jobs, they are cancelled, they get beaten up by Antifas at demonstrations: for the latter, RadFems are “fascists”, therefore not human, therefore not women, therefore the rules of life that govern relations between human beings (such as: “A man does not hit a woman”) no longer apply. This kind of “Left” makes fine speeches and presents itself as a model of morality, but its fine principles only apply to those who agree with this political current.

The theories and ideologies that make up Wokeism are full of magical thinking and dogma. In Transgender ideology, the concept of transidentity is not established and is based solely on how people feel. It implies the existence of a soul independent of any material reality. There is no objective way of verifying a person’s “gender identity”. Self-determination, what the person says about him/herself in this regard, is supposed to constitute proof (“Dogma of the infallibility of self-determination”). It’s not allowed to doubt it (otherwise: accusations of “fascism”, as usual). It goes so far that in some countries even men convicted of rape and claiming afterwards to be women have been transferred to women’s prisons.

Researchers who hold views that differ from the claims of Wokeism are automatically regarded as hate-motivated charlatans. Cases of intimidation, censorship, harassment and even dismissal are multiplying. There is no longer any freedom of research on these subjects. As a biological male living as a woman (social transition only), I don’t see why not believing in the existence of transidentity should constitute hatred or transphobia (in fact, I don’t believe in it myself). Transphobia is only hating people who live socially as members of the other sex, wishing them harm. Just as racism is only about hating and wishing harm to people of other ethnicities. Everything else is a witch-hunt. I think it’s very important for concerned people to remember this. Nature is not designed to conform to our wishes (magical thinking), and materialist atheists in particular should know this. Science is not about fantasizing about a nature as we would like it to be.