May 14, 2021 - 2:30pm
It is one thing to tell people what they ought to believe; quite another to tell them what they do believe.
That, however, is the special privilege of the woke Left. It would seem that their superior political opinions come with psychic powers and, as a result, they know your mind better than you do.
For instance, here from last night is Owen Jones’ reaction to the furore surrounding the suspension of Howard Beckett by the Labour Party:
https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1392972824046931978?s=20
The reason why Beckett, a senior union official who sits on the Labour National Executive Committee, was suspended is on record — he tweeted that Priti Patel should be deported (he later apologised, but cancel culture doesn’t accept apologies). But despite this obvious explanation, Jones thought himself able to discern what was really on the Labour leadership’s heart
Another example came earlier this week from Labour MP, Nadia Whittome — who tweeted the following in response to an article by Tony Blair in a Left-wing journal:
When Tony Blair rails against the “woke left” in his @NewStatesman article, he means young people.
Our generation won't put up with injustice. We demand deep, fundamental change – for the working class in all our diversity.
Whether he likes it or not, we're the future.
— Nadia Whittome MP (@NadiaWhittomeMP) May 12, 2021
But there’s nothing in the article to suggest that Blair did mean young people and everything to suggest that he meant the woke Left. It’s true that some young people are woke, but they wouldn’t have got those ideas if it weren’t for the older people spreading them through the media, schools, universities, political parties and other institutions. It strikes me as more likely that Blair was criticising a defined ideology that he clearly disagrees with rather than the idealism of the young.
But then what do I know? I’m not a mind reader.
Meanwhile in America, it appears that the psychic abilities of US Left-wingers are far ahead of their British counterparts. Last Sunday (which is Mothers’ Day in the US) Elizabeth Bruenig of the New York Times wrote a piece about her experience of young motherhood. Relatable, you might think; inspiring even. But such are the finely-tuned antennae of the woke that they were able to detect a disturbing reactionary subtext.
It was nonsense of course, as Mary Harrington explains here. But the episode serves as another example of the way that the woke Left attacks people for things that they haven’t actually said.
But perhaps I’m guilty of the same thing — using three unconnected instances to make a generalisation about the mindset of an entire political movement. Except that the tendency to make assumptions about what other people *really* think is characteristic — arguably definitive — of the language and methodology of wokeness; for instance, concepts like unconscious bias, undeclared privilege and internalised misogyny/racism/homophobia.
The contemporary Left is sometimes accused of dodging — and sometimes suppressing — debate. But then if they already know what their opponents think, what would be the point?
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeThe Left has always been somewhat detached from reality, but now they are totally unhinged from all sense or reason. It would be quite entertaining were it not for the fact that they still control ‘the commanding heights’ of the nation’s institutions, ministries, public sector professions, broadcasters and charities etc, along with a number of councils and cities.
Cathy Newman epitomised this in her infamous interview with Jordan Peterson (“So what you’re really saying is…”). She couldn’t argue against what he had actually said, so she made up something he hadn’t said, and tried to attack that.
Yep, the diversionary technique known as ‘cathynewmanning’ or ‘pulling a cathynewman’.
I have to laugh at Whittome and what her generation will tolerate. These people are among the top 1% of all humans who have ever lived, yet she’s railing about “injustice.” Self-centered, self-righteous, but not self-aware.
What people tolerate is always relative. They tolerated serfdom as a step up from slavery in Norman England but wouldn’t now.
People have always said ‘the young today have no idea how easy they’ve got it.’ It’s a staple of comedy and literature.
What’s interesting, I think, is more older people today saying the young don’t have it so easy and maybe we can learn from them and help. And that help can only be offered from a position of relative security – which always leads to the risk of self righteousness and lack of self awareness. Doesn’t always have to be self centred, though.
It turns out that even Michelle Obama – she with the multiple million dollar homes in Georgetown, Hawaii and Martha’s Vineyard is scared for herself and her private school/Ivy League educated daughters . In an interview with Gayle King recently she fell right into “I am scared when my girls get into the car to drive. Someone may look at them from the back and not realize they are smart, nice young women” The interview is incredible and my opinion of Michelle has hit bottom. As Candace Owen and Tucker Carlson pointed out, where are the landscapers, Secret Service, nannies, household help? Do none of them keep the Obamas safe.
My experience is that young people are mostly anything but Woke. The drivers of this insanity, are usually 50+, white and female.
Other groups will climb on this bandwagon in the hope of material advantage, but beneath the surface, they are usually no more Woke than I am.
You just described my CRT professor. Ironically, during one of her sermons about black female voices being unheard, one of the black female students spoke up to disagree with her. The professor told her to shut up. This for me encapsulated the whole woke movement.
That’s taking anecdote and your own experience and applying it to a whole woke movement which you don’t define.
I met a bloke from Colchester once who was a racist but I don’t think it applies to everyone from Essex.
I’m sure you think you were making an intelligent point there, but no.
Yep, his vocabulary doesn’t include the word extrapolate.
Missing the point somewhat?
Oh wow, that’s just too precious! Did anyone catch it on camera or audio at least? It would make the ultimate anti-woke meme, it should be broadcast on a continuous loop.
There seems to be increasing amount of cases where people are being dismissed or disciplined if they don’t accept the trans message. The latest case involves a mature law student who merely mentioned that in martial arts a trans woman had superior strength-rest students complained at idea women are not as strong as men. As there have been a number of accidents, one fatality , one left in a coma & one left with a broken back where females competed against trans females it seems that some people live in an alternative world-Descartes would have been proud of them.
I wonder if , when they become parents, they would be happy for their toddler to play football with a team of teenage boys?
Do you have a source for that? It sounds interesting.
Today’s daily mail-student is at Dundee University-the odd thing is they are studying law-so how would they represent a girl athlete for example , who because of training etc is often about the size of a ten year old who has been injured by a trans woman who is size adult man? . Its like incredible hulk taking on a barbie doll.
Why do you need the source – cases like these are well documented
They may be documented but that does not mean they are necessarily true. In this case, for example, the stories in the papers are based entirely on the student’s account of what happened and the University is not commenting, rightly, as a disciplinary investigation is underway. I’m not saying what the student claims is not true but at the moment there’s not enough known about the case out in public to be sure.
Trans girls destroying biological girls in sport and people losing jobs because of their refusal to accept trans ideology is common and well documented – just do some basic research
Joe Rogan has often talked of similar incidents in MMA in the US. Biological males fighting females and doing great damage. Somebody will die very soon.
Thanks. I struggle a bit to understand why the various sports bodies can’t get their respective acts together and come up with some rules which are safety based which would take precedence over anything else.
Don’t boxing and horse racing have weight rules-featherweight or something?
The idea behind the trans movement is to dislodge people from reality. Once people can be coerced to accept a big lie like this, they will go along with everything. Those who know it’s not true are meant to feel demoralized. It’s basically psy-ops on a mass scale.
They will also be persuading a lot of girls not to take up sport as you need to win to get the scholarships. If Joe who was only average at sport can suddenly become a winner by being Jo I can see the attraction , but parents of girls who make years of sacrificies must be furious.
A case of the Trans new clothes.
Which of course negates years of training and an aptitude for that particular skill. Rather odd thing is what they are going against in universities ; , classical music, ballet , traditional theatre , opera etc are all things mainly the middle class ( ie themselves) enjoy and wish to do.
Alternative worlds are associated with 20th century analytical philosophers of modality such as Quine, Kripke, and David Lewis rather than Descartes; have an upvote nevertheless.
Yes, and this dismissal of biological determinism – no, biological realism – is odd for two reasons IMO. One concerns the furor against domestic violence. But why be so upset – assuming no weapons are involved – if wives and girl friends are just as strong as their husbands and boy friends? In that instance, some sense of realism is likely to take over Woke thinking, only to be forgotten the moment the discussion turns to trans athletes.
The second problem is the usual Woke attitude towards religion. I’m fairly certain that few if any of them are creationists. Quite a few are atheists, in fact. But that leaves only Darwinian evolution as an explanation for why we humans exist. And that’s a theory that relies on genetic differences to explain our rise from unicellular life forms. It simply can’t work otherwise. But the Woke simply ignore this problem, if indeed it has even occurred to them.
Speaking as someone who fits the physical description you gave, I can assure you that not all of us are woke drivers of insanity!
It’s already eating itself. Look at the way the radical trans lobby are laying in to the feminists.
Nadia Whittome makes my skin crawl. She is everything I detest about the modern day Labour Party, and saying that ‘young people are woke’ is disgusting. I am 19 years old and I am as anti-woke as one can be. I will not be told what I believe just because I was born in a certain year!
Isn’t it always the case that those, of whatever political persuasion, who claim the moral high ground (and often the sole right to define morality) claim to be able to discern the evil motives of all their opponents as well as the innate virtue of all their supporters?
Yes. At base nothing has changed.
It’s not their only trick. Listening to an interview with a New Statesman columnist the other day I heard her tell JHB (don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean) that she was scared of her and afraid to debate her. JHB, a bit crossly, pointed out that she was a New Statesman columnist, and ought to be able to hold her own.
I found it rather puzzling. Couldn’t work it out at all. Then the penny dropped: it is evidently a tactic of those I have come to think of as ‘that lot’ to assume a posture of powerlessness when faced with an argument they sense they might not win.
I think the idea is to present an image of solidarity with the oppressed minority, which, as we all know, is faced with an enemy who is far too powerful and threatening.
The New Statesman columnist aligns herself with that group, and in so doing aligns JHB with the powerful oppressor.
Adopt this tactic and you don’t have to win arguments, because you can win sympathy. Any used car salesman will tell you the truth of the old adage: win an argument, lose a sale.
I think this is what we have to look forward to: people for whom direct engagement is less productive than perceptual manipulation.
You think that’s bad. Check out this recruitment ad for the CIA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X55JPbAMc9g&t=102s
Hilarious isn’t it?
I have no idea who JHB is.
Yes, me neither actually. I do not live in the UK but maybe that is not the key point.
Julia Hartley Brewer. She is a very prominent jouranlist and broadcaster and she hosts the breakfast show on Talk Radio. She has often appeared on Question Time etc. I really don’t know how any British adult with an interest in current could not know who JHB is.
Do you who AOC is? Or MLK? Or Candace Owens? (She is not known as CO). Or Alex Belfield? Or The Officer Tatum?
Not every commenter on this site is British, and possibly not all adults. Kremlington Swan and you should take that into consideration. Having been told by you who it is, I still can’t say I’d heard of her before this discussion. Plus I find that there’s a fair amount of arrogance in KS’s remark, and I find that objectionable.
As to AOC, MLK, and Candace Owens, I think there are probably a fair number of reasonably well-informed British adults who might no know at least one of those initials or the full name on the list. For any who don’t, the first is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a radical congresswoman from New York City; MLK is Martin Luther King Jr., a black civil rights leader whose birthday is now a national holiday in the US; and Candace Owens is a conservative black speaker and writer. I know these, and I’m American. But I realize the whole world doesn’t revolve around my native land.
“I heard her tell JHB (don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean)”
I’m very sorry, but I honestly don’t know who JHB is. Could you tell me?
We demand deep fundamental change – for the working class in all our diversity.
Now all you have to do is convince the working class that diversity is what it wants.
Yes, you are the future. I wish you well with it. I tend to think if you have your way there will be no more electricity within 100 years, because the knowledge of how to harness it will have been lost.
Owen Jones has a magic 8 ball that he consults to write anything, it only has three phrases:
“the Tories are to blame”
,
“everyone who earns more than Owen Jones current earnings should pay in full for all Owen’s ill thought out political policy’s and be grateful for having those policy’s forced upon them”
&
“Owen Jones has blocked you on twitter”
I think reporting general would be improved by taking a step back and remembering that people are not mind-readers.
So not for example Keir Starmer cares about ordinary British people or Boris Johnson believes Brexit will benefit Britain, but Keir Starmer says he cares…., Boris Johnson says he believes….
There is evidence of says through witnesses, videos etc.
There is no evidence at all of cares about, believes, thinks etc.
It is not a small point, in my opinion.
Good point. And don’t start any sentence with ‘The woke want/believe….,’
‘The Woke want to destroy the West.’ Why not say that? It is pure truth.
The whole jury on the recent George Floyd case were able to see through the evidence which clearly showed no murder took place, and look into Chauvin’s heart and see the murder hidden in there, and so justly convict him.
So essentially the left employs straw man arguments?
Not just that but the left think they can look into peoples souls and work out their motivation. For example, a criticism of feminism and they accuse me of misogyny – without knowing the first thing about me.
It replaces the religious ‘original sin’ with the secular one. As they are the high priests ( of the left ) they are already sanctified.
Maybe if you explained what it is about feminism you don’t like? The principles or proposals, not the people. It’s easier to dismiss people expressing a view of an ‘-ism’ than people saying what and why they hold a particular view.
I was talking in a general sense and not referring to my own life experience. I dislike feminism because it adheres to narratives which are false. For example, the ‘gender pay gap’ has been thoroughly debunked but this seems to make little difference to the feminists who hold onto their narrative akin to a cult.
You assert:
I would reply in the words from Peter Franklin’s article:
Of course there’s a point (in debate). They might know what you really think, deep down, but you clearly don’t, so the purpose of the debate is to open your eyes for you. It’s pure altruism.
I had never heard of Whittome before. She may be a wonderful person – I have no idea – but it seems ludicrous that someone can be elected as an MP at the age of 23.
Would 30 not be a reasonable minimum age?
I notice she is half-Sikh. I am quite often coming across MPs I had never heard of who are members of ethnic minorities. I wonder what the percentage who are white, British and if a religion is stated, that it is Christian. I am pretty sure it would be below our share of the population.
Sadly she isn’t a wonderful person, she is a bigot and an absolute imbecile.
People need to wake up it’s not a left-right thing. It’s an intellectual superiority thing. Needless to say this expresses itself with a left wing credential rather than a right wing wing one simply because of who those intellectuals are and the positions that they are in within society. However, the end result is the same a group of people who “know” what is best for society. Our current RIGHT WING government is full of them! The Labour party has either Blairite uni educated millionaires or uni educated extreme woke lefties.
They all want the same thing : everything to be controlled from the centre by a group of privileged individuals and rest of us to be subservient, compliant , uncomplaining and always voting for blue or red (even though there is no difference). Its the same in the US with same colours (is that a coincidence or conspiracy, discuss 😉 ).
Cultural Marxism is NOT CRITICAL THEORY!
Cultural Marxists and so called Left intelligentsia Critical Theorists have explicitly turned Critical Theory into Uncritical Theory.
In Traditional and Critical Theory (1937), Max Horkheimer defined critical theory as social critique meant to effect sociologic change and realize intellectual emancipation, by way of enlightenment that is not dogmatic in its assumptions.[14][15]
Unlike Orthodox Marxism, which applies a template to critique and to action, critical theory is self-critical, with no claim to the universality of absolute truth. As such, it does not grant primacy to matter (materialism) or consciousness (idealism), because each epistemology distorts the reality under study to the benefit of a small group.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School
In other words, Wokeism is dogma derived from Orthodox Marxism. Whereas Critical Theory is intentionally self reflexive in order to avoid dogmatism.
Cultural Marxism is the exact opposite despite Cultural Marxism appropriating and redefining the concept Critical Theory.
The main principle of Cultural Marxism is to assert its dogma which includes reframing and reinterpreting opponents views within the template of Cultural Marxism.
The main driver behind Cultural Marxism is not Equality, Diversity and Inclusion but the creation of a revolutionary vanguard of intellectuals to displace what is perceived as ‘Conservatism’.
Cultural Marxism is one of the contested platforms for the ‘Progressive Alliance’ whereas Blair is calling for a New Socialist alternative.
So despite the emancipatory overtures of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, the Woke’s Culture War is primarily a political endeavour that seeks to take control of the cultural organs of the Nation through the application of a self-uncritical dogma based on the binary between the Proletariat and the Bourgeoisie.
From the perspective of New Progressives (or New Marxists), the revolutionary conditions of a human growth/climate/biodiversity/ ecological/economic crisis create the conditions for an Old Socialist State Welfarism/Paternalism in conjunction with a New Socialist Corporate Welfarism/Paternalism, both of which are based on Marxist dogma, national and global central planning and community wealth building.
This in opposition to what is perceived as (Old and New) Conservative State Welfarism/Paternalism which is in conjunction with (Old and New) Conservative Corporate Welfarism/Paternalism which are based on ecological rationality, the national and global mixed economy and community wealth building.
The fashion today is to fight the idea of getting old. It is possible to do something physically but it is more important – mentally- to bracket yourself with ‘young’.
To me 20 and maybe 25 is young. After that it is middle age. But if politicians and writers and academics see themselves as young, then you get woke from people in their 30s and even 40s.
In my late 50’s, anyone under 40 is young. My eldest is 27. Although she’s perfectly sensible and grown up, it seems quite bizarre to me that you would think of her as middle-aged.
Why am I getting into this cattle truck in a station ? It is for the good of the revolution comrade we know what you think.
The woke needs to wake up – to reality.
Surely the concept of unconscious bias is about assuming what people don’t think?
That aside this article is another good example of why the term woke should not be used. It means too many different things to too many people for discussion about it to mean anything.
As someone pointed out below, it might be wise to define what is meant by ‘woke’. A helpful site for this is;
https://newdiscourses.com/tftw-woke-wokeness/
Of course, apart from the exaggerated ‘psychic’ abilities as seen in their use of such fallacies as the Kafkatrap, there are what I call cognitive pathologies, such as the totalising of a moral impulse back in time when used in retrospective bigotteering and Moral Presentism, and the bald assumptions lauded as asserted reifications such as the concept of ‘power’.
Iron Law: “You can always tell a ‘progressive,’ but you can never tell a ‘progressive’ a single thing. They think they know it all.”
Much of woke cancel/ censor LeftSpeak magically mind reads the various fabricated false carictures they pigeon hole all who are not them to dismiss/ cancel/ defame them, a testament to their obvious self delusion ,intolerance, prejudicial stereotyping ,etc….everything they falsely accuse others of .
In the free democracies of the west where free speech is usualy protected and observed , such nonsense is met with a,well deserved critque and rebuttal that sends the propagandists and their rubbish into oblivion .
The lefts self induced myopia reflexively dismisses any and all truth and evidence of the flaws , deceptions and irrational defects of their artifificial dogma.The strident systemic censorship / cancellations indicates their own insecurity of the emptiness of their creed.
We see the falseness and harms of the woke ” god.”
The question now is what we are going to do about the medman at the wheel.
There are citizens, groups organising to stand up , oppose and dethrone them.
A new video series called The Woke Reformation has some leading figures and voices offering suggetions as how we can do our part .