“Western Civilization is being ideologically colonized.” The culprit is the virus of woke ideology, which has spread across the organizational systems of liberal Western societies to infect established institutions. The aim is a purified utopia based on the comprehensive enforcement of ‘equity,’ ‘diversity,’ and ‘inclusion.’ This is the starting point of the short book, Counter Wokecraft, written by engineering professor Charles Pincourt and the founding president of New Discourses, James Lindsay; their main ambition is to supply an antidote to the cultural infestation.
At least since the 1920s, Marxists have pursued the strategy of infiltrating the cultural institutions of society, particularly in education. The anti-Soviet Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci was a trailblazer in this respect, emphasizing the need for “cultural hegemony” over the more classically Marxist economic concern with “seizing the means of production.” This pivot in leftist strategy culminated in Rudi Dutschke’s desire for a “long march through the institutions”—a call to action that, consciously or otherwise, was obeyed by his fellow left-wing activists from the 1960s onwards. The collection of strategies that the woke ideology uses can be called “wokecraft,” just as espionage makes use of tools and tactics that can be identified as “spycraft,” argue the authors.
The book makes the case that these strategies, “while tricky and manipulative,” are also “comprehensible, predictable, and able to be countered,” and therefore can be resisted. Right from the outset, the authors begin the explanation of wokeism as follows: “Ultimately, there are three main principles that bring the many different flavors of Woke together: the knowledge principle, the political principle, and the subject principle.” As such, it is synonymous with Critical Perspective, Social Justice, and Critical Social Justice (CSJ).
By the ‘knowledge principle,’ wokeists embrace a specific stance towards reality; more precisely, that reality, while not denied, is considered “impossible for us to know” in its “true nature.” The reason for this is that the knowledge we think we possess is socially constructed, that is, “defined by the culture we live in.” Since different cultures have a different understanding of the nature of the world, its true nature must be unintelligible. Different worldviews are simply different ‘stories’ about reality.
The political principle hones in on this socially constructed knowledge and specifies it as socially constructed by the oppressor groups within a given society and culture, usually at the expense of oppressed groups. The self-appointed wokeists see themselves as liberators from this oppression and must therefore demolish the social framework that creates knowledge. Additionally, a significant element of this political principle is the redistribution of resources according to group identity, which is known as ‘equity.’ The redistribution is intended to flow from the ‘oppressor groups’ to the historically ‘oppressed groups.’
The ‘subject principle’ denotes that individuals are primarily defined by—and are subjected to—their group identity (white, female, black, European, etc.). People are oppressors or oppressed according to which group(s) they are identified with. A corollary to this principle is that the individual is responsible for certain actions taken by the group they are associated with since individual behavior is defined by one’s identity. The perceived oppressive act of one individual stands for the oppression by his entire group.
Just as oppression moves from an individual to a group, so can victimhood. What has generally been understood as “intersectionality” is better described by the authors as consisting of identities that can be combined into a “matrix of oppression.” Matrices of oppression can help to understand and evaluate the “oppression any given individual suffers according to their overlapping group membership.”
After wokeism is properly defined, the authors set out to expound on some of the strategies that the woke Left adopts to achieve its goals. Some of these are more commonsensical than others. One of these strategies is coined by the authors as “always try.” This strategy consists of always trying to further entrench the CSJ in the university environment.
“A key aspect of the Woke ethos is an obligation to oppose and resist oppression, while not opposing is tantamount to complicity with oppression. As a result, in every situation where oppression is identified, woke participants will try to make an advance.”
The zealotry firing the woke crusaders demonstrates religious overtones, which are amplified by the conviction that wokeists are fighting for a ‘true’ and ‘just’ cause. With this quasi-religious zeal, they further their academic and ideological revolution.
As with every revolution, the woke revolution begins with language. This is another primary focus of the book, as is the central theme of many of James Lindsay’s talks and presentations. The woke Left has formed its own conventional vocabulary, which consists of “woke crossover words.” These words commonly share three characteristics: (1) The words are common and non-technical-sounding (e.g., equity, diversity, and critical). (2) The common definitions of these words are well understood and believed to be commonly shared. Using the word critical in critical thinking, for instance, indicates in the classical sense an honest questioning of a conviction or unfounded belief. Until it has been ‘critically’ examined, the opinion remains an opinion and only becomes a conviction when evidence is found in its support. And lastly, (3) “crossover words” sound “nice.” The positive is emphasized over the negative. While this does not apply to all words, words such as inclusion (rather than exclusion) and equality (rather than selective ostracizing) are always preferred by wokeists.
The book provides further examples of more subversive woke tactics, which clearly stem from Pincourt’s experience teaching at an American university. Explaining how woke activism undermines the classical productive and normative rules of behavior in discussion (such as Robert’s Rules of Order), the book goes on to show how, through bullying, a push for informality, emotionality in discussion, and an aversion to secret ballot voting, woke activists succeed in establishing an uncomfortable atmosphere during meetings and discussions and thus dismantle resistance against their cause. By singling out and bullying adversaries, they do not win by fair play but rather by cheap bullying tactics.
The book describes the “Reverse Motte & Bailey Rhetorical Technique,” adopted by woke agitators, which is truly a fascinating tactic. The term Motte & Bailey refer to a form of a medieval European castle introduced into England by the Normans. The motte is a well-reinforced tower on a mound that is easy to defend but unpleasant to stay in. The bailey is the courtyard below the motte surrounded by a protected ditch and palisade that is less secure and more difficult to defend but more pleasant to inhabit.
The Motte & Bailey strategy involves a proponent who wants to advocate a difficult-to-defend extreme position (the bailey). When (or if) the extreme position is challenged, the proponent retreats to an easily defendable and easily acceptable position (the motte). The key to the strategy is a hidden false equivalency of the extreme and the easily acceptable position.
An example of this strategy is that a wokeist may propose a lower hiring rate for white professors based on the assumption that white people are inherently racist. When challenged and pressed to produce evidence for the inherent claim, the wokeist may say, “Oh, so you don’t believe that racism exists?” This is based on the false equivalency between the (uncontroversial) claim that racism exists and the extreme case that all white people are inherently racist.
The book explains many of these micro tactics in detail, such as the moral high ground, moral hubris, “obfuscation with technical jargon,” “always support a woke ally,” and more. The grand goal of all these strategies and tactics is the “woke viral infection.” This means:
The achievement of equity is to be done by overthrowing all existing institutions (committees, departments, faculties, universities, disciplines, funding agencies, and governments), each of which is considered a site where oppression needs to be exposed and overturned. … The overthrow is undertaken in much the same way as a virus infects a cell. … Viruses attach and then infect cells thanks to receptors on the host cells. Receptors recognize and attach to proteins useful to host cells, but viruses can mimic the proteins and thereby attach to host cells. Once a virus is attached to a cell, it can enter it and use the cell’s own machinery to replicate itself.
The receptors in this example correspond to the critical nature of academic thought and the call for more diversity, both of which are not inherently bad but rather open to hijacking by viral woke proponents.
The second part of the book is dedicated to strategies that counter wokecraft. While some of them are straightforward, such as “take it seriously” or “be vigilant,” others are more useful and applicable guidelines. One such strategy is to be alert for woke words, or “woke crossover words” (see above). There are too many to list, but some are: critical, diversity, inclusion, liberation, and privilege. Some of these words will be philosophical in nature, such as hegemony, epistemology, dialectic, and so forth. Others will be simply made up, such as ‘autosexuality,’ ‘wimmin,’ and ‘xdisciplinary.’
Another strategy is to present alternatives. Whenever wokeists try to take over and spread their ideology, it is important to have rebuttals and arguments ready and also have a reasonable alternative. Yet another is not to let the wokeists “add their words.”
In view of the specific Motte & Bailey strategy, the authors suggest a counter-strategy: “stealing the motte and bombing the bailey.” ‘Stealing the motte’ involves recognizing the legitimacy of the motte position but directly challenging the bailey position. From the example above, ‘stealing the motte’ would involve responding that obviously racism exists, but at the same time explaining that the claim that all white people are inherently racist, is itself racist. A different way of doing it is to “never let them use their words.”
The most important strategy outlined is to find allies in the fight against wokeism. When preparing for a discussion, it may be wise to agree to support and defend each other against ad hominem attacks or bullying. When confrontation occurs, one needs to have counterarguments ready. Part of this is the ability to explain why equity is too simplistic, or that equal opportunity does not mean equal outcome, and that inclusion begets exclusion, when, for instance, resources that are redistributed to one group are by default taken from another that might be equally needy. As the authors state:
We who want to bring universities back towards a liberal, universal, Enlightenment mission have witnessed a long-term effort to hijack the university and make it the handmaiden of an anti-liberal, anti-science moral activism. As a result, we mustn’t imagine that righting the ship of [the] modern university will be done quickly. At the same time, it can be done, although it will have to be done as part of a concentrated long term effort.
Overall, the book is a useful tool in the decolonization of the institutions, in curing them from the woke virus, and in re-establishing a fertile, truly liberal environment, in which open discussion and dialogue are fostered. As such, it is an applicable vade mecum for academics and employees and will surely prove useful for decades to come.
