Is wokism a symptom of ‘late-stage capitalism’ from right-wing politics?
Whatever combination of people, ideas and circumstances it was that led to the phenomena of wokism and cancel culture and their fearsome power at this time and stage in Western civilization, surely nobody would claim they originated anywhere but on the left.
Yet I was reminded at a recent conference that not even the most innocuous assumption should be taken for granted when, during a Q&A session discussing the origins of wokism, one academic proposed that wokism is a reflection of “latestage capitalism”.
It turns out this eccentric idea – or non sequitur – has become a minor cottage industry among left-wing theorists, some of whom are themselves targets or casualties of wokism.
Among them is political scientist Frances Widdowson, who was fired by Mount Royal University in Calgary for criticizing aspects of Indigenous learning and defending her beliefs, something she continues to do with notable pugnacity.
Widdowson expounded upon her “late-stage capitalism” hypothesis in a recent podcast discussion. “People often think that wokism is a left-wing position, but I don’t think that it is,” she told host Tammy Peterson. “I think that wokism is a reactionary, anti-enlightenment position and is intent on reordering what is considered to be the hierarchy of oppression within the capitalist system.”
Wokism, believes the Marxist Widdowson, comes from the right.
This issue is acutely relevant because wokism’s destructive rampage has started to bring together conservatives/ traditionalists with some liberals and even leftists to stand up for free speech, open inquiry and the right to dissent without career destruction.
Recent comments from Widdowson and others, however, cast doubt on the viability of such a united front.
Asserting that wokism stems from the right seems strange. Wokism’s philosophical basis resides firmly on the left, including the teachings of German-american philosopher Herbert Marcuse (who inspired the “New Left”), the “Frankfurt School” of left-wing theorists, French post-modernists/deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida, and others.
Numerous authors, most recently James Lindsay, Christopher Rufo and Andrew Doyle, convincingly trace wokism via post-modernism and critical race theory back to the wellspring of radical left thought – Karl Marx. The conceptual, intellectual and historical origins of wokism and its connections to other elements of leftism have also been extensively evaluated by C2C Journal.
Nearly all of wokism’s leaders and activists are identifiably (and often self-identified) leftists. The co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, for example, described herself as a “trained Marxist”.
Wokism’s methods, rhetoric and goals – like tearing down the “capitalist system” – align with those of left-totalitarianism.
Critical race theorists like Mari Matsuda, Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic claim free speech hurts people and campaign for official censorship, echoing Marcuse’s doctrine of “repressive tolerance”. And a preponderance of wokism’s taets have been conservatives, despite being a small minority of academics, journalists and celebrities.
Widdowson’s theory about wokism requires ignoring (or being ignorant of) all these facts. “Late-stage capitalism” is an artefact of Marxism. Marx claimed to have mapped out the future, including the “inevitable” failure of capitalism, which was to reach a “late” or “end” stage in which it would crash into its “unbreachable” limits.
According to theoreticians like the German Marxist Werner Sombart and the Belgian Trotskyite Ernest Mandel, the West’s economies entered this “stage” after the First World War. It seems we are still living in it.
Figuring out what wokism has to do with “late-stage capitalism” requires probing the workings of the Marxist mind. Marxists proudly consider themselves “rational materialists” and their doctrine “scientific”. Unlike actual science, however, which is subject to challenge, testing, revision, retesting and refinement, Marxism considers itself perfect as-is. Infallible. It’s more like a quasi-religion than science.
If Marxism can’t be wrong, then anything that is wrong must be something other than Marxism. Like some malevolent force that seemingly just sprang up and began eating good, earnest, rational Marxists alive. Like wokism. As for where wokism does come from, since capitalism is the source of most of the world’s evil (religion, tradition and the family accounting for the rest), then wokism must come from capitalism.
This trainwreck of illogic would trigger hoots of derision in a first-year undergraduate logic course. But to Marxists with doctorates, it makes sense. This is highly unfortunate. Seeing how badly the dogma of these Marxist victims of wokism stifles their intellectual judgment makes one also question their future reliability in the trenches of the culture war with wokism.
It doesn’t need to be this way. The postsecond World War revelations about the murderous crimes and soul-crushing evil of the Soviet Communist regime caused a wave of ardent Western leftists – including Communist Party members and even spies – to renounce their beliefs and become passionate defenders of Western freedom and democracy.
These included journalists Malcolm Muggeridge, Norman Podhoretz, Paul Johnson and Peter Hitchens; author Arthur Koestler; philosopher Sidney Hook; former spy and Time magazine editor Whittaker Chambers, and many others. Many underwent religious conversions and most contributed to the intellectual renewal of Western traditionalism and conservatism.
The rise of wokism and cancel culture has now inspired some on the left to, if not actually join the centre-right, question their doctrinaire assumptions and criticize the conventional wisdom. Among these are comedians Dave Rubin and Andrew Doyle – author of The New Puritans – environmentalist Michael Shellenberger and TV host and comedian Bill Maher, whose mocking of gender ideology has alienated him from the leftist establishment.
For conservatives fighting to protect free speech and social sanity, it’s heartening to have allies on “the other side”. There are reasons for caution, though, as some of the most prominent anti-woke liberals – unlike Chambers’ generation – don’t seem to recognize what part of their ideology got us here. Coming from the left, they would be solidly placed to help, and a return to tolerance and social sanity will require many tools from the intellectual toolbox.