Woke is waning, but freedom isn't winning either...
The End of Woke:
How the Culture War Went Too Far and What to Expect from the Counter-Revolution
By Andrew Doyle
Constable, 560 pages, $27
Andrew Doyle begins his new book
The End of Woke by expressing his hope that the book will one day become a compendium of historical curiosities that merely makes “a decent doorstop.” He’s partially right: Reading his catalogue of absurdities—the compulsory pronouns, the protest theater, the police knocking at the door to “check your thinking”—does give the distinct feel of being hung over and forced to recall the unseemly events of the night before. But while the enthusiasm of that moment has faded and certain of its excesses are being pared back, much of its legal backing remains in place.
Doyle’s book, which is written with wit and intelligence, makes another fact absolutely clear: Woke may be losing, but freedom hasn’t won. Society has not yet found its way back. If anything, we may find ourselves more lost than before. Doyle reminds us that liberalism did not triumph in the woke era, and it won’t again unless we realize that it needs defending.
Doyle’s central argument is simple but too often missed: “Wokeness is not an extension of liberalism; it is its opposite.” Woke movements cloaked themselves in the language of liberal tolerance, inclusion, and anti-racism. But this was only ever a ruse. Doyle mines a seemingly bottomless pit of examples to show that all the talk of decency and opposing bigotry was a smokescreen: Wokeness is distinguished specifically by its “authoritarian aspect.” It demanded not moral agreement, but ideological submission. I would go further: Wokeness is defined precisely by its antithesis to liberalism.
Andrew Doyle begins his new book The End of Woke by expressing his hope that the book will one day become a compendium of historical curiosities that merely makes “a decent doorstop.”
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