How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason: 1 (None)

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In fact, some argue that those most likely to use the term ‘woke’ are those on the right, indifferent to the plight of the marginalised, claiming victim status for themselves and trying to whip up a ‘culture war’. It privileges identity over social class, and superficial linguistic changes over material concerns.

was the year that being woke – and, importantly – letting people know that you were woke, became fashionable. Craig’s 007 is ‘tender, cries and gets into the shower in his tuxedo to comfort a woman’, gushes Higson. By the mid-20th century, ‘woke’ was still used almost exclusively by members of the African American population but two meanings ran in parallel: be vigilant for potential threats from powerful whites and also be ‘aware’ or ‘well informed’ about political injustices in general. More generally, woke ideology overides social class, divides workers according to identity, and allows employers to act as a neutral arbitrer in workplace conflicts. It’s on my Top 10 List of books that helped me make sense of wokeness, the culture wars, and the migration of working class voters out of the left side of the political spectrum.To be seen as woke is either to be praised for being awake to social injustice or derided for Mao-style awareness-raising. With its moral righteousness and veneer of egalitarianism, woke ideology lends authority to the demands made by activists and those in positions of power. Women leaders such as Jacinda Ardern, Kamala Harris and Nicola Sturgeon exemplify the woke authoritarian outlook Mahmood describes. Writing in her new book, How Woke Won, Joanna Williams is under no illusions: “Woke has conquered the West. By these means woke activists inculcate a new generation with woke values and separate them from the cultural legacy of the past.

The following is an edited extract from How Woke Won: The Elitist Movement That Threatens Democracy, Tolerance and Reason , the new book by Joanna Williams, published by spiked . This was a protest song describing an incident from 1931 in which nine black teenagers from Scottsboro, Arkansas, were accused of raping two white women.It has introduced a climate of censorship and self-censorship and led to the cultivation of victimhood and dependency. This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Yet despite this, the goals associated with being woke not only still exist but have moved from the fringes of political life to mainstream thinking. Many of woke’s critics are concerned about a growing hostility to the liberal principles of free speech, tolerance, civil rights and democracy. When the penalty for challenging movements such as Black Lives Matter may be career-ending accusations of racism, it is understandable that people nod through the elisions.

Wokes does not seek to engage in reasoned debate but simply to denounce and tear down those deemed to have transgressed the norms of identity politics. More than this, it means adopting a position that may be nuanced and rapidly changing, that must be expressed using only an approved vocabulary, and that may – as with feminism – end up being fundamentally at odds with the original principle. The shift from white men in suits to trendy, young, transgender, bisexual people of color has been rather superficial. She has given many guest lectures, most recently speaking at the Universities of Bonn, Cologne, Leiden and the Freie University in Berline. How Woke Won, a new book by Joanna Williams, is a must read for anyone wanting to understand the illiberal and divisive ideas that dominate society today.While the ways ‘wokeness’ makes itself known today are not obscure, its evolution from an aspirational concern with racial justice to a zealous obsession with overcoming all forms of social injustice is more hazy.