Slavoj Zizek article - Wokeness is here to stay

[DemiColon]

I thought some might find this interesting and timely - Zizek touches quite a bit on gender ideology controversies, including current Scottish issues with self id, but he places them within the larger phenomena of identity politics.

compactmag.com/article/wokeness-is-here-to-stay

I looked to try and pick out some excerpts, but most don't really work as stand alone paragraphs. What I will say is that while he touches somewhat on political power, he mostly seems to come to the conclusion that what he is calling wokeness is a phenomena of the superego, which is to say, a psychological explanation.

I see 'wokeness' as a tool of the Western elite, another means of dividing

It's certainly used that way, as are many issues. Not restricted to Western powers - Russia's been involved in stirring the issues, too.

But is that what has actually created it and pushed it forward?

most people have attached to 'Progress' as a religious substitute or secular religion

I've been told by a councillor that something was the right thing to do because it was 'progressive', as if everyone agreed on what that term meant, and that it was unquestionably the correct thing to do. The subtext was that we should always change things, and that any change was de facto for the better. I guess this is the myth of upward progress and evolving towards something perfectible, utopian idealism, etc. Which I have read is informed by and/or echoes Abrahamic religious stories, promising redemption and paradise.

Be interesting to hear how these issues play out in India and China.

I know very little about philosophy, so forgive my blundering. But I did see something like this in the pomo theory I was taught in higher ed. An abandoning of the idea that we could agree on anything, a splintering and fragmentation and undermining of all systems of knowledge.

No doubt those who wrote the texts had more sophisticated arguments than 'fuck everything, nothing is real', but that is how it roughly filtered down to the 'clever' proponents of pomo ideas and spread among them. I remember someone trying to convince me that Derrida's 'there are no absolutes' was absolutely true.

It's just a form of nihilism, in that case? Which is an incomplete understanding and I would say often a form of philosophical Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

really interesting.

In short, what we have here is the worst combination of politically correct badgering with the brutal calculation of financial interests.

This is an important point. as is the religious point that follows it.

All of them were exposed to a superego pressure that is far from an authentic call to justice. The black woke elite is fully aware it won’t achieve its declared goal of diminishing black oppression—and it doesn’t even want that. What they really want is what they are achieving: a position of moral authority from which they may terrorize all others, without effectively changing social relations of domination.

This is also very useful analysis. The goal isn’t removing oppression at all. It’s ensuring that you are in control of it snd reconfigure it to suit you.

And it is exactly the same with much of the ongoing “woke” movement: The woke awaken us—to racism and sexism—precisely to enable us to go on sleeping. They show us certain realities so that we can go on ignoring the true roots and depth of our racial and sexual traumas.

I like this final paragraph. The sleight of hand is important. It’s about controlling the narrative in such a way that people are busy flagellating themselves for daring to ask questions or even consider doing so. And it’s so effective because the flagellation is part of the enjoyment of it all for those involved.

As to why the establishment, corporations, etc. have jumped on the 'woke' bandwagon:
Zizek's article talks about 'superego' and how it is a psychological mechanism for institutions to be terrorized by the woke minority.

I can't explain the universities, but in the corporate world I think it is much simpler - corporate wokeness is a substitute for greenwash.
Greenwash was giving the appearance of doing something about the environment and climate change, whilst actually doing as little as possible. The problem was that it was all too easy for activists to point out that the corporate emperor had no clothes, and that in fact the corporations were still carrying on business as usual behind the scenes.

Given that the goal of the corporations is to carry on business as usual whilst having the appearance of paying more than lip service to 'progressive causes', wokeness is so much more easy to adopt than greenwash. Rather than having to hide your carbon emissions, all you have to do is change the signs on the toilet doors and run a few 'diversity and inclusion' workshops.

It’s about controlling the narrative in such a way that people are busy flagellating themselves for daring to ask questions or even consider doing so.

Yes, for sure. It is functioning like a religion, in that there are mysterious movements that normal people can't understand, only the self appointed chosen ones.

What they really want is what they are achieving: a position of moral authority from which they may terrorize all others, without effectively changing social relations of domination.

So are we seeing a new form of religion being created? Which is to say a new system of power and hierarchy being set up?

John Gray's 'Seven Types of Atheism' touches on several of these things.

'“Mechanically reversing the traditional pieties of the west like flipping a series of switches, the devotees of extremity have created a pious tradition of their own, carried on to a stultifying extent in the institutions of culture, particularly the art world and some wings of academe.”'

johnpistelli.com/2021/11/15/john-gray-seven-types-of-atheism/

I think it’s just a shift in ‘what good looks like‘ without changing anything about the underlying structures of power.

This is why it’s not a progressive movement in the least. It doesn’t want to change how power functions in society, just to shift the terms to enable the (self appointed) leaders of this movement to dominate.

The moral claim about what is and is not good or worthy remains the basis for
dominating others.

If you analyse political speeches of all kinds, you’ll see variations of the phrase ‘it is right that’ are unbelievably prevalent. What this movement is doing is shifting the ground for what is considered ‘right’ to what suits them. They are controlling the moral orthodoxy. They’re not doing anything radical like challenging domination based on moral orthodoxy.

It’s so effective because of this superego dynamic where the dominated can derive pleasure of a sort from feeling that they are trying but ultimately failing - the ambivalence around their moral worth is precisely the point.

I've been reflecting upon what to seems to me to be an inordinate lionisng of youth in recent years and this adds to, but also stems from, in part, the big generational divide that we are now constantly told exists. We are told older people have all of the privilege and younger people have been left out in the cold.

Increasingly we have very young local councillors ( one in my city was just 19 years old on election) and also MPs. Greta Thunberg became a spokesperson for the world in her early teens and very one hung on her every word. Scotland has been wanting to give the vote to 16 year olds for a long time.

Perhaps some older people feel guilty for their supposed privilege and so are inclined indulge youthful idealism. I know a lot of older traditional leftists are left baffled by the 'woke' ( what I consider to be U.S originated Campus ideologies and theories) politics of the younger Momentum crowd, but just go along with it and don't question it too much. they consideer these issues side issues in a 'manufactured culture war'.

As you suggest most young people get caught up in idealistic political or social movements, as this is the nature of youth, as I'm sure many of us posting here did too. Young people always believe that they are the first to see, or to reveal, the secret hidden inner workings of oppressive structures and so on.

But what is different in today's 'woke' politics is the deep radicalism that is on display and one that is totalitarian and authoritarian in nature and tolerates no dissent. Like others have said it is zealous in nature and clung to like an article of faith.

I think it will recede with time, but we are talking about 20 years or more - as the dark aspects of these ideologies become ever more evident. But in the meantime there needs to be a continual push-back and challenge to help it on its way.

Surely wokeness amongst young, mainly but not exclusively m/c folk, even if a bit self righteous, preachy, patronising etc is better than the complete lack of political engagement that many show ? I saw a youtube thing a few months ago and most of the young adults didn't even know what a union was..... Their opinions might not be entirely to our liking particularly from a GC viewpoint but at least it means they are interested and prepared at some point to debate as they mature.

I’m not sure it really is political engagement.

the concept of NO DEBATE (and the capitals are always at least implied) I exactly the opposite of political engagement.

So a quasi religious political movement?

But what is different in today's 'woke' politics is the deep radicalism that is on display and one that is totalitarian and authoritarian in nature and tolerates no dissent. Like others have said it is zealous in nature and clung to like an article of faith.

If you were part of fringe left politics in the 70s and 80s, the radicalism and zealous and authoritarian nature will be nothing new. I dare say the same could be said of the fringe/far right, but I have no experience of that.

What is new is that woke politics are utterly divorced from traditional political concerns like economics, class, wealth, taxation, productivity, etc.

The feminism of the 70s was deeply concerned with economic justice, as was the black power movement.
The gay rights movement was possibly new in this respect, being concerned with changing the law and society's attitudes rather than changing the economy.

At some point from the 80s onwards, "progressivism" dropped economic concerns and became more and more about identity.

I think young people in the past did accept that there is such a thing as reason, and material reality. This POV says those things are racist/sexist/colonialist constructs.

There was a thread about school uniform yesterday with the usual argument about whether it is good or bad to "permit" children to butt up against uniform rules and whether it stops wider rule breaking.

Material reality has moved a long long way from my childhood.
Want to watch children's TV? It ended at 17:40.
Want another biscuit? The packet has run out
Want something from the shop? It's only open between 9 & 6.

The boundaries and barriers of every day life have changed. Things are possible for young people that weren't available to my generation. Is it any wonder that "No" is ignored by people who have learned it means OK if you insist?

What hasn't changed is human psychology and the tendency of the crowd to turn on difference. Woke is often bullying. It's not about treating people well, or as equals, it's about throwing stones at someone - anyone - else to try to look good. No one expects the woke inquisition.

This makes sense.

I think there are large sections of every age group and demographic who have no interest at all in politics or in pretty much anything beyond their small circle of personal life. It often strikes me how poor the 'general knowledege' of many people is, and how little interest some people have in the wider world.

Not everyone has a natural political instinct, but most people, especially younger people, do have access to social media and it is this that shapes their group affinity or sense of belonging.

Yes, post modernism very much feeds on, and is a product of, individualistic, consumer society in which the emphasis is on finding your 'true self' which is, and can be, totally self created or manufactured, or else bought off the peg.

Individual self fulfillment above all else.

I think the opposite - 'wokeness' is a very poor substitute for genuine political engagement. In fact wokeness works to prevent political engagement of the traditional sort (concern with money, unions etc.), because it is a distraction, it fills the attention so that people can't focus on what the real issues are.

Wokeness also prevents young people learning how to debate, how to think about issues and work with other people to negotiate agreement. Wokeness is anti-debate, anti-thinking, anti-facts. It is all about subjective feelings replacing objective truth.

To a degree.

If you look at contemporary political debate, the quasi religious nature of it all isn’t limited to the woke aspects. Politicians of all ilks draw on the idea that ‘it is right to’ to root their decisions in a supposedly shared morality.

I guess that with the waning of Christianity (and its institutions) as the determiner of that shared morality has meant that other morality systems (in a loose sense) fill the void.

Interestingly, the urge is still to institutionalise the power structures based on this (ambiguous) morality.

I always think that religion is just an ancient and well established form of social policy. The aim is to control what people do and legitimise your claim to do so in moral terms. Without a god to centre your machinations around, you have to operate somewhat differently and find different ways of delegitimising competing moral value systems/claims on power.

So we see attempts to elevate terms like ‘progressive’ to quasi-devine status. And ‘conservative’ or ‘right-wing’ to a kind of apostasy.

It’s all just about gaining the power to control others though. Lots of people want to be followers, but also to believe that acting as the enforcers of an ideology makes them ‘leaders’.

Ironically, most of the theories that start with post-, actually argue against the idea that there’s any possibility of a true self. Or a true anything.

But that bit gets swept under the rug.

It actually amazes me that poststructural and postmodern theory is used to make claims about (essential) identity and authentic selves. That’s even more
bonkers than some of the stuff to be found in a thousand plateaus.

Thank you all for this thread - I'm not smart enough to contribute but its so interesting reading your thoughts. You're putting into words many ideas I've been unable to elucidate.. 😊

@hryllilegur

I find it interesting that you see religion in terms of a social morality system and a tool of power or control.

I was thinking of religion in terms of what people can "believe in", what gives their life meaning. Which is why the narrative of Progress is so pervasive - people 'believe' in it like a religion, and without it life is meaningless.

If you don't believe in God (gods/goddesses), you most likely believe in "Man" (capital M, i.e. humanity as a whole). The conclusion is that mankind is eventually destined for a bright shiny Star Trek future out among the galaxies. To believers, this is inevitable, right, and self-evidently a good thing.

Back to your point, the analysis of morality and abuse of power in the woke movement is absolutely key to understanding it - both as part of the religion of progress and as a phenomenon in itself.
Zizek comes up with a 'Superego' explanation, linked somehow to dreams. I'm not sure that is entirely useful, but every bit of the jigsaw helps.

Yeah, the trouble with postmodernism is that if nothing is 'true' and everything is relative, what are we supposed to believe in? We have to believe in something.

So belief sneaks in by the back door, thoughts are anchorless and driven entirely be emotion, and people end up believing that it is possible to change sex.

I think faith might be to do with belief and finding meaning.

But religion, as an institutionalisation of that, has quite the history of social
control.

Quite an interesting article in Unherd, today, which addresses some of the above discussion on truth and relativity: unherd.com/2023/03/the-death-of-historical-truth/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=c859c754cd&mc_eid=8424260694

"The habit of reinforcing one’s political instincts by adopting whatever facts suit them is too deeply ingrained in human nature. Today, it is intensified by the social media. They are a major source of information, especially for the young. But they are curated by algorithms which amplify views that already exist, suppressing nuance, balance or doubt and giving a misleading impression of a great tide of opinion when the material is often generated by a handful of fanatics.

Those who believe that knowledge and truth are mere social constructs are almost bound to end up by suppressing competing views. If what we think we know is actually no more than an artificial consensus created by power structures invisibly controlling our schools, universities, publishers and museums, then there is no point in debate. You have to change the power structures, take control of those institutions and create a new consensus. This is what is now happening. It is happening with the enthusiastic support of many of the institutions themselves. They lack the self-confidence to stand up for a rational approach to empirical research and knowledge which alone justifies their existence. I am not going to suggest that modern academic scholars on the British Empire and slavery are all determinists in the mould of Foucault and Edward Said. However, their treatment of the past often shares the three main vices of postmodernist history: tendentious selection, exaggeration and intolerance of dissent"