VIDEO: Is wokeness really dead?

Is the voting public finally losing patience with progressive politics? How real is the anti-woke backlash? Brendan O'Neill, the chief political writer at Spiked (or Sp!ked, if you like) is the author of a new book which tackles these questions.

In, Vibe Shift: The Revolt Against Wokeness, Greenism, and Technocracy, Mr O'Neill.makes the case that across western countries in both North America and Europe, the tide is turning against so-called “wokeism” and that the pendulum is swinging hard the other way. But, he warns, the hydra-headed monster isn't dead yet.

In this video, Mr O'Neill is interviewed by Spiked editor Tom Slater. They discuss how the elites' crazy ideologies are colliding with reality, common sense and public fury. If you can handle the English accents, you'll hear why he believes the common sense of the ordinary people is prevailing over woke politics, but that the left lunacy, although receding, is far from dead. 

 

There's a free speech issue here... indeed, freedom of thought... particularly in Canuckistan, where the Minister of Justice (so-called) announced on Tuesday that the Liberal government of Marx Carnage are ready to limit debate on their bill banning hate symbols, which also removes the religious exemption to some hate speech laws. 

Leftist ideology is inherently authoritarian. When moral certainty is paired with institutional power (universities, HR departments, media, professional bodies), dissenting views are treated as not mere disagreement but heresy.

As our old friend Dr Jordan Peterson learned, there are social and/or professional penalties for expressing unpopular views. The consequences of speaking out are such that academics and professionals find that discretion is the better part of value and start censoring themselves.

Disagreement from the prevailing orthodoxy is treated aas a moral defect. Framing complex social issues in binary moral terms -- you're either right (like us) or wrong -- reduces tolerance for ambiguity and gives people kudos for virtue signalling rather than the seeking of pragmatic solutions to problems.

Instead of being treated as individuals, people are now treated as members of identity categories. That's  how we find people "identifying as" a group of initials: L, G, B, T, 2S, POC, and so forth. This actually encourages divisions in society rather than the tolerant multiculturalism which is the stated goal of the ideologues. "Let's all form a circle, hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya'." Not any longer!