My latest video is a discussion with Ashley Frawley, a Marxist academic, on the nature of the Woke movement. Although it is often described as Marxist (sometimes self-described as such), is it really a left-wing movement, or is it (as I suspect) closer to being a fascist one?
Really insightful discussion here, on the short-sightedness of “wokeness”. For myself, I see wokeness, Dworkinite “feminism” & similar regressive movements as following a template that falls back on scapegoating to “explain” social problems.
That template begins with a blanket view that the whole world sucks. When you think about it, you can’t really motivate lots of ppl to call for radical change if they take a more ambiguous view of the world.
Next step: Blame “those people” for making the whole world sucking. Don’t focus on systems or even practical solutions. The world sucks & it’s all the fault of “those people” … the only difference in ideologies is who “those people” are.
Step three: Purify ourselves. If global suckiness is the fault of “those people” then either “those people” stop being “those people” or we just get rid of them (e.g., cancel culture).
Step four: Anybody who dares to question this view of the world, for any reason, is not “one of us” but in league with “those people” … So Dworkinites declare so-called liberal feminists as “agents of patriarchy”; Weimar Republic Communists classify Social Democrats as “social fascists”; Trump followers label anti-Trump Republicans as “Democrats in disguise” et cetera.
The worst things about ideologies & groups that follow this template is that it’s not really focused on solutions or working together. It’s about labeling & blaming. I can see why you consider it fascism bcoz far-right political groups follow this template. Thing is, so many groups do, even non-political ones. But if we label all such groups as “fascism” aren’t we allowing ourselves to slide into the same trap?