Writing for The Times, Mathew Syed argues that we’re not past peak woke. Syed highlights that “unconscious bias training and cancellation are mainstream for the young” and will be institutionalised when they are in charge.
Syed discusses The Economist’s analysis of the rise and apparent fall of wokeism. “The magazine defined woke — I think rightly — as a term that has morphed over the decades from denoting an awareness of racism to a spectrum of views encompassing structural racism, radical trans rights, cancellation and the like. I won’t waste time pinning down definitions since, as with pornography, I suspect most of us know wokeism when we see it (although perhaps that is now a view that could get me cancelled).
“The Economist looked at a variety of trends: how often terms like “intersectionality” and “white privilege” are used in print media (it examined millions of articles); how often they are used in TV programmes (it analysed thousands of transcripts); how often they are used in scientific papers; how often they feature in companies’ financial reports; how often calls are made for academics to be disciplined; and so on. As I say, the data was exhaustive and, I would add, superbly assembled.
“But it was the way The Economist interpreted the data that troubled me. It noted that trends, by almost all these measures, particularly in America, were falling back after a high point roughly around the aftermath of the George Floyd riots. It concluded that the phenomenon was on the decline. We are, it said, almost audibly breathing a sigh of relief, “past peak woke”.
“I disagree. I say this because, while the visible data reveals a clear pattern, I find myself asking: what about the invisible data? What about the cancellations that have become so normalised they are no longer reported? What about the initiatives (like mandatory unconscious bias training, which has never had evidence to support it) that are no longer mentioned in quarterly reports because they have become routine? What about the conservatives who self-censor out of fear of cancellation? When you take a step back, the data shows that woke is not past its peak but has moved from the wallpaper and into the brickwork.
Syed argues that “from the Sewell report, which was stillborn because it challenged the notion of institutional racism, to some of the surreal court judgments emanating from the Equality Act, the pro-Palestine marchers, many of them inspired by the perception of Israel as a colonial oppressor, the testimony to Congress from university leaders who struggled to condemn calls for the genocide of Jews and the denigration of British history — a near-universal tendency among academics influencing the next generation but emphatically not the general public — the wind remains in the sails of radical wokeism.
“And it is, I think, this last point that is most significant. When we think of “the long march through the institutions”, too often we forget the key word: “long”. Forgive a crude generalisation, but those on the right tend to go into finance and business because they are motivated by money. Those on the left tend to go into museums, charities and academia because they are willing to play a longer game. That is why cultural institutions trend left and Marxists console themselves with the thought that, while they live in smaller houses, they have the greater — if subtler — influence.
“And this, I fear, is the other fallacy in The Economist’s analysis. It’s true that a fightback against wokeism has begun, largely driven by older liberals who — after cowering rather pathetically out of fear of cancellation — started to stand up for free speech, due process and the reality of biological sex. But you can glimpse its grip on our cultural institutions in the fact that much of Gen Z, which will soon replace the present generation in positions of political, cultural and corporate power — has markedly different views. And that is why it is in a decade or so that the rubber will hit the road: on women’s rights, single-sex spaces, free speech, the West’s relationship with Israel, our understanding of history, indeed our very sense of self.
“I should perhaps say that I wholeheartedly endorse the rational aspects of the progressive agenda. I supported the fight against racism and the opening of doors to talented people from minority backgrounds. Hell, I even wrote a book on how diversity, properly understood, improves teams and societies, a thesis with which most conservatives and liberals agree. But I have long feared radical wokeism, a strangely transmissible virus that could yet prove lethal to our future, and that has inspired a mirror version on the populist right, which seems just as keen to denigrate our history, the memory of Churchill and Nato.
“That is why epitaphs for wokeism are not just premature but dangerous. Indeed, when you look at the invisible data, you’ll see that the fightback has only just begun.”
Worth reading in full.
