Andrew Doyle's The New Puritans is perhaps the best attempt so far to define the woke movement. He observes that what is variously called “the successor ideology,” “critical social justice,” and “identity politics”—“woke” for short—blends puritanical fundamentalism with mass hysteria, as in the Salem Witch Trials.
Various courts were persuaded to accept “spectral evidence” from girls claiming people were witches who'd joined the Devil's Party. “Spectral Evidence”—ghostly apparitions of certain named townsfolk, sometimes with familiars (a yellow bird; two grotesqueries; a man in black)—along with assertions the girls had been “bitten and pinched by invisible agents” was accepted as evidence of guilt.
“Spectral evidence,” “lived experience,” and “invisible systems of power and oppression” are siblings under the skin. All are phenomena only visible to those who claim (or claimed, in the case of the long-dead Salem girls) to be able to see. All allow people who should be called “plaintiffs” or “complainants” to style themselves “victims,” thereby abrogating presumption of innocence.
American witch trials were self-limiting in a way European ones (where tens of thousands of people were executed) often weren’t. When courts stopped accepting “spectral evidence,” the witch trials came to a natural end, while those awaiting trial were pardoned. The whole business lasted little over a year. 19 innocent people were hanged, while one man was pressed to death for refusing to enter a plea.
Wokery is what happens when leftism and social democracy metastasize into something similarly awful. The woke have nicked Karl Marx’s class-conflict model and then applied it to race, sex, and sexuality instead of rich and poor. Also stolen from other leftist intellectuals is an obsession with hierarchies of oppression coupled with vague plans for a wonderful, utopian future.
Yes, there is contempt for the working-class involved, but often because working-class people won’t curb their tongues when speaking about minorities and women. Marx himself despised the lumpenproletariat, while Marxism in practice has been more murderous than fascism.
Doyle points out that freedom of speech is so mistrusted thanks to the belief—and it is mere belief, there is no evidence for it—that “reality is constructed and conceptualized via systems of language.”
Political correctness promotes a milder version of the same verbal unreality that characterizes Wokery. It suggests that if you call the “Chairman” a “Chairperson” more women will want to be Chairpersons. That little Helen never wanted to be a chairperson because she saw the word “man” and thought “I can’t be that.” This isn’t mere politeness. It’s a belief that words can change reality.
What some call “politeness” may have been purchased at too high a price. There is the now-familiar claim Wokery is a Christian heresy, with its concern for victims and exaggerated stories of oppression. Yet social justice religiosity and Christian roots aren’t enough to explain Wokery. Something more is needed. That something more turns out to be a combination of mass hysteria and evidentiary gullibility.
FULL STORY
A RELATED OBSERVATION -
NOTE In ALL instances Wokies have immunity to accusations - if the ideology fits, you MUST acquit - If not, charges are a mere formality, as guilt is a foregone conclusion & immediately after the public show trial concludes the dirty slime will be simultaneously drawn & quartered, burned at the stake & hung by the neck, streaming on the Web & airing on all networks live in prime time. (Figuratively speaking of course. We're looking at you, Donald. Jail's too good for you.) Justice served! Case closed! Court adjourned!