Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, authors of Cynical Theories, join Andrew Doyle’s podcast Culture Wars. The trio discuss the origins of woke ideology, its religious parallels, and how the pandemic forced it into the mainstream. From fat studies to academics, the world appears to have been taken over by identity politics. The result is the creation of a seemingly enormous congregation of members in the church of social justice. Don’t miss this enlightening discussion.
This podcast was originally published at Spiked.
3 comments
Well, as a dyed in the wool left winger, I have to take exception to the naming of all this wokism as Marxist. Translating property and power to notions such as “normalcy” is a perversion of Marxism. I believe identity politics is a poison that has corroded left wing politics, especially in the English speaking world. Identity politics is the antithesis of left wing politics. The latter is about fairness, the former is about getting as much as you can for yourself through claims that your identity gives you the right to it. Anti-race movements such as BLM are definitively racist, feminism is definitively sexist and so on. That the left has descended into this fight between self-defined stereotypes is so destructive that I wonder if it was not all invented by the real target of Marxism – the owners of capital that seek to control our lives to their benefit, by any means available.
Congratulations on the release of Cynical Theories (at last). I’ve been looking forward to it for months now. Tonight I finally get to dig in.
Let me explain the woke movement. It is another cycle of the divide and conquer, culture war strategy of the financial elite. It is used to set the public at each other’s throats so the supply side model can continue unchallenged. Let me know if you’d like to talk about this.