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Beyond Woke
A few short years ago, Michael Rectenwald was a Marxist professor at NYU, pursuing his career and contemplating becoming a Trotskyist, when the political climate on campus - victimology, cancel-culture, no-platforming, and political correctness run-amok - began to bother him. He responded by creating a Twitter handle, @AntiPCNYUProf (now @TheAntiPCProf), and began bashing campus excesses with humor and biting satire. Predictably, he was soon discovered and pushed out of his job.
Rectenwald struck back by publishing Springtime for Snowflakes, a memoir of his experiences in academia, which included criticism and analyses of the leftism now dominating campus culture. He followed that book with Google Archipelago, which delves into the seeming enigma of why big business embraces far-left politics - hint: self-interest is involved - and the rapid growth of consumer/citizen surveillance. The foundation for a robust leftist totalitarianism is being carefully laid.
With this new volume, Rectenwald returns with his characteristic sharp wit and incisive analysis and continues to fine tune his critique of modern leftism. In Beyond Woke, he brings his unique perspective as an ex-Marxist and civil libertarian to bear on leftist culture, with its abandonment of traditional morality and emphasis on collective social identities - which are ironically increasingly atomized, as overwhelming centrifugal forces break up any previously stable social cohesion.
The revolution is here and it s winning. Find out why, and how to combat it. Get Beyond Woke.
Rectenwald struck back by publishing Springtime for Snowflakes, a memoir of his experiences in academia, which included criticism and analyses of the leftism now dominating campus culture. He followed that book with Google Archipelago, which delves into the seeming enigma of why big business embraces far-left politics - hint: self-interest is involved - and the rapid growth of consumer/citizen surveillance. The foundation for a robust leftist totalitarianism is being carefully laid.
With this new volume, Rectenwald returns with his characteristic sharp wit and incisive analysis and continues to fine tune his critique of modern leftism. In Beyond Woke, he brings his unique perspective as an ex-Marxist and civil libertarian to bear on leftist culture, with its abandonment of traditional morality and emphasis on collective social identities - which are ironically increasingly atomized, as overwhelming centrifugal forces break up any previously stable social cohesion.
The revolution is here and it s winning. Find out why, and how to combat it. Get Beyond Woke.
258 pages, Paperback
First published May 18, 2020
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254 people want to read
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September 17, 2020
The raging Corona virus pandemic has not only birthed a humanitarian crisis of profound magnitude, but has also triggered socio-cultural fissures that are expanding every day, threatening to cleave into a chasm. A raft of movements popularized by hash tags such as #BlackLivesMatter #SocialJusticeMovement #ProgressiveMovement etc have proliferated in response, gaining both popularity and endorsement. However, a roiling world has also spawned a new neologism that has at the centre of its philosophy, nefarious notions such as ‘cancellation culture’, ‘self-criticism’, ‘privilege-checking’, ‘public shaming routines’, ‘no-platforming’ of speakers, and ‘safe spaces’.
Michael Rectenwald , former Professor of Liberal Studies and Global Liberal Studies at New York University from 2008 to 2019, and a prolific author, in a searing polemic, delivers a scathing indictment – via a series of essays - of, the new “Woke” culture – the neologism referred to above that, contrastingly threatens to obfuscate the very principles that it professes to espouse. A classic case in point being the “cancellation of three authors” in India by the much-vaunted Bloomsbury India publication. Goaded and coerced by a bunch of condescending left leaning ideologues, Bloomsbury decided not to go ahead with a jointly authored manuscript, which its own editors had accepted and cleared for publication. The reasons offered for the volte face ranged from the meek to the asinine .
The progenitors of the “woke” culture define it to mean, “the political awakening that stems from the emergence of consciousness and conscientiousness regarding social and political injustice.” However, as Mr. Rectenwald chillingly illustrates, this definition is just a dog whistle seeking to promote an attribute of herd mentality, whilst at the same time trying to avoid opprobrium by paying token lip service to the creed of ‘liberalism.’ Mr. Rectenwald himself was at the receiving end of “Wokeism” at its brutal best (as he recounts in detail in the book), when a “non-conformist” interview given by him resulted in a forced leave of absence, followed by a unanimous ostracization by the faculty at the New York University. The cost of not kowtowing to the taken-for-granted campus orthodoxy ultimately resulted in Mr. Rectenwald resigning from his faculty position. “I was also roundly denounced by an official committee, called the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group, who ended their sentencing by declaring: “The cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.” I have since dubbed them “the Conformity, Inequity and Exclusion Group.””
Mr. Rectenwald argues that the Contemporary notion of social justice is but a pale shadow of its original version. A nineteenth-century Catholic social theory, this principle was envisioned and formulated in the early 1840s by Luigi Taparelli d ’Azeglio , an aristocrat turned Jesuit priest. The primordial objective underlying this new concept was enshrinement of a new mode of justice, to supplement and not supplant the already existing ones in the Catholic justice doctrine (commutative, distributive, and legal justice). However in its current virulent Avatar, the phenomenon of Social Justice envelopes within its ambit, “new (trans)gender theories and activism, as well as notions of “privilege,” “privilege checking,” “self-criticism,” “cultural appropriation,” “discursive violence,” “rape culture,” and so forth.”
As Mr. Rectenwald illustrates with an exquisite blend of satirical wit and methodical research, the Woke phenomenon is not restricted to just a few departments in select Universities. It has spread with a parasitical aplomb to engulf mindsets that now view this more as a norm than an exception. For example, to be accorded an acceptance at most Ivy League universities, Mr. Rectenwald illustrates that the applicant must first transport a sufficient and acceptable degree of wokeness. For example, in “Congratulations!” Rectenwald notes that Ziad Ahmed, a 2017 applicant to Stanford University, responded to the application essay prompt “What matters to you, and why?” by typing “#Black Lives Matter” 100 times . Needless to say, Mr. Ahmad got selected.
In a satirical letter, Rectenwald envisions the Stanford Office of Admissions lecturing Ahmed to “Think of Stanford University as a social justice warrior incubator. Our mission is to produce students who will repeat social justice phrases without hesitation, who will refuse to listen to differing perspectives, and who will serve as carriers of this ideology to the wider society.”
Such a dangerous percolation of forced ideology into the academia does not bode well for the future of liberalism as understood in its original and unadulterated sense. As Mr. Rectenwald elucidates in some disturbing detail, “I witnessed the de-professionalization and de-legitimation of the faculty—hiring policies based on tokenized identity politics and cronyism, an increasing anti-intellectualism and ideological conformity expected from faculty and students, and the subsequent curtailment of academic freedom.” This uncompromising edict of conformity or bust that brooks no meaningful opportunity for debate and defenestrates opposing viewpoints tarnishes the very fabric of democracy.
Wokeism has also managed to penetrate Corporate Boardrooms. Chieftains of sprawling conglomerates have discovered that “Woke-washing” companies lends a much higher credence than enhancing employee benefits, both monetary and intangible. May employee welfare be damned! Ideology over incentives is the in-fashion cant and the new credo. In a riveting Harvard Business Review piece published on the 27th July 2020, and imaginatively titled, “Woke-Washing” Your Company Won’t Cut it, Erin Dowell and Marlette Jackson highlight how statements of solidarity “gloss” over internal inequities . “Organizations such as Whole Foods, Pinterest, and Adidas have all seen public complaints from current and former employees that corporate statements of solidarity glossed over internal inequities. For many workers, such statements from executive leadership underscore how the same leaders who rally for Black lives have fallen short when it comes to addressing these problems. Empty company statements can seem to say that Black lives only matter to big business when there’s profit to be made.” As Mr. Rectenwald articulates, possessed by a bent of “Woke Capitalism” (a term coined by Ross Douthat of the New York Times), these Multinational Enterprises bend over backwards and outdo each other in a frenzied rush to pay obeisance to the paeans of Wokeism.
Mr. Rectenwald demonstrates the behaviour of Gillette to bolster the facet of Woke Capitalism. I refer to Gillette and its “We Believe” ad. Like Nike, Gillette is a subsidiary of Proctor & Gamble. First posted to its social media accounts in mid-January 2019, the ad condescendingly lectures men, presumably “cishetero” men, about “toxic masculinity.” In the provocative ad, three men look into separate mirrors—not to shave but to examine themselves for traces of the dreaded condition.
It is astonishing to believe that for over a decade and a half, Mr. Rectenwald was a proponent of Marxist ideology being a firm Communist himself. His disturbing experience with the Wokeist herd at the New York Times following his posting of a series of anonymous tweets mocking the common college classroom practice of asking students to choose or invent which gender they are and which pronouns must be used to refer to them, induced a transformation in him. This places him in a fantastic position to deliver a critique of the Woke creed that has as its edifice the preaching and promulgations of the two Karls – Marx and Popper, Michel Foucault and Marcuse.
At the time of writing this review, the latest victim to fall prey to the culture of cancellation, has been the Enlightenment Philosopher, David Hume. Edinburgh University's David Hume Tower has been renamed "40 George Square" following protests over the 18th century philosopher's supposedly racist writing . This raises the quintessential question of “what’s next” after all those that are denounced as “cancellation” material have been cancelled, what would follow such an act? Would the world find itself at a cul-de-sac such as the one envisaged by Francis Fukuyama in his “The End of History and The Last Man? ” Or is there something that goes even beyond “Wokeism?” Mr. Rectenwald suggests that there might be lurking a “hyper-woke” to the woke world.
“For some, like the founders of a Facebook page “Beyond Woke,” the phrase means a state of super-enlightenment, living a life devoted to going deeper. Not just being awake and aware of the wool that has been pulled over the eyes of the people, but a continual and ongoing examination of all of life and a commitment to questioning everything. It isn’t just about seeing the veil, but discovering what lies beyond it and seeking both a more enlightened self and a more enlightened society. Not just aware but enlightened. Not just woke, but Beyond Woke.”
For the information of the readers, Mr. Ziad Ahmed did not join Stanford University and preferred Yale instead. OUCH!
Michael Rectenwald , former Professor of Liberal Studies and Global Liberal Studies at New York University from 2008 to 2019, and a prolific author, in a searing polemic, delivers a scathing indictment – via a series of essays - of, the new “Woke” culture – the neologism referred to above that, contrastingly threatens to obfuscate the very principles that it professes to espouse. A classic case in point being the “cancellation of three authors” in India by the much-vaunted Bloomsbury India publication. Goaded and coerced by a bunch of condescending left leaning ideologues, Bloomsbury decided not to go ahead with a jointly authored manuscript, which its own editors had accepted and cleared for publication. The reasons offered for the volte face ranged from the meek to the asinine .
The progenitors of the “woke” culture define it to mean, “the political awakening that stems from the emergence of consciousness and conscientiousness regarding social and political injustice.” However, as Mr. Rectenwald chillingly illustrates, this definition is just a dog whistle seeking to promote an attribute of herd mentality, whilst at the same time trying to avoid opprobrium by paying token lip service to the creed of ‘liberalism.’ Mr. Rectenwald himself was at the receiving end of “Wokeism” at its brutal best (as he recounts in detail in the book), when a “non-conformist” interview given by him resulted in a forced leave of absence, followed by a unanimous ostracization by the faculty at the New York University. The cost of not kowtowing to the taken-for-granted campus orthodoxy ultimately resulted in Mr. Rectenwald resigning from his faculty position. “I was also roundly denounced by an official committee, called the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group, who ended their sentencing by declaring: “The cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.” I have since dubbed them “the Conformity, Inequity and Exclusion Group.””
Mr. Rectenwald argues that the Contemporary notion of social justice is but a pale shadow of its original version. A nineteenth-century Catholic social theory, this principle was envisioned and formulated in the early 1840s by Luigi Taparelli d ’Azeglio , an aristocrat turned Jesuit priest. The primordial objective underlying this new concept was enshrinement of a new mode of justice, to supplement and not supplant the already existing ones in the Catholic justice doctrine (commutative, distributive, and legal justice). However in its current virulent Avatar, the phenomenon of Social Justice envelopes within its ambit, “new (trans)gender theories and activism, as well as notions of “privilege,” “privilege checking,” “self-criticism,” “cultural appropriation,” “discursive violence,” “rape culture,” and so forth.”
As Mr. Rectenwald illustrates with an exquisite blend of satirical wit and methodical research, the Woke phenomenon is not restricted to just a few departments in select Universities. It has spread with a parasitical aplomb to engulf mindsets that now view this more as a norm than an exception. For example, to be accorded an acceptance at most Ivy League universities, Mr. Rectenwald illustrates that the applicant must first transport a sufficient and acceptable degree of wokeness. For example, in “Congratulations!” Rectenwald notes that Ziad Ahmed, a 2017 applicant to Stanford University, responded to the application essay prompt “What matters to you, and why?” by typing “#Black Lives Matter” 100 times . Needless to say, Mr. Ahmad got selected.
In a satirical letter, Rectenwald envisions the Stanford Office of Admissions lecturing Ahmed to “Think of Stanford University as a social justice warrior incubator. Our mission is to produce students who will repeat social justice phrases without hesitation, who will refuse to listen to differing perspectives, and who will serve as carriers of this ideology to the wider society.”
Such a dangerous percolation of forced ideology into the academia does not bode well for the future of liberalism as understood in its original and unadulterated sense. As Mr. Rectenwald elucidates in some disturbing detail, “I witnessed the de-professionalization and de-legitimation of the faculty—hiring policies based on tokenized identity politics and cronyism, an increasing anti-intellectualism and ideological conformity expected from faculty and students, and the subsequent curtailment of academic freedom.” This uncompromising edict of conformity or bust that brooks no meaningful opportunity for debate and defenestrates opposing viewpoints tarnishes the very fabric of democracy.
Wokeism has also managed to penetrate Corporate Boardrooms. Chieftains of sprawling conglomerates have discovered that “Woke-washing” companies lends a much higher credence than enhancing employee benefits, both monetary and intangible. May employee welfare be damned! Ideology over incentives is the in-fashion cant and the new credo. In a riveting Harvard Business Review piece published on the 27th July 2020, and imaginatively titled, “Woke-Washing” Your Company Won’t Cut it, Erin Dowell and Marlette Jackson highlight how statements of solidarity “gloss” over internal inequities . “Organizations such as Whole Foods, Pinterest, and Adidas have all seen public complaints from current and former employees that corporate statements of solidarity glossed over internal inequities. For many workers, such statements from executive leadership underscore how the same leaders who rally for Black lives have fallen short when it comes to addressing these problems. Empty company statements can seem to say that Black lives only matter to big business when there’s profit to be made.” As Mr. Rectenwald articulates, possessed by a bent of “Woke Capitalism” (a term coined by Ross Douthat of the New York Times), these Multinational Enterprises bend over backwards and outdo each other in a frenzied rush to pay obeisance to the paeans of Wokeism.
Mr. Rectenwald demonstrates the behaviour of Gillette to bolster the facet of Woke Capitalism. I refer to Gillette and its “We Believe” ad. Like Nike, Gillette is a subsidiary of Proctor & Gamble. First posted to its social media accounts in mid-January 2019, the ad condescendingly lectures men, presumably “cishetero” men, about “toxic masculinity.” In the provocative ad, three men look into separate mirrors—not to shave but to examine themselves for traces of the dreaded condition.
It is astonishing to believe that for over a decade and a half, Mr. Rectenwald was a proponent of Marxist ideology being a firm Communist himself. His disturbing experience with the Wokeist herd at the New York Times following his posting of a series of anonymous tweets mocking the common college classroom practice of asking students to choose or invent which gender they are and which pronouns must be used to refer to them, induced a transformation in him. This places him in a fantastic position to deliver a critique of the Woke creed that has as its edifice the preaching and promulgations of the two Karls – Marx and Popper, Michel Foucault and Marcuse.
At the time of writing this review, the latest victim to fall prey to the culture of cancellation, has been the Enlightenment Philosopher, David Hume. Edinburgh University's David Hume Tower has been renamed "40 George Square" following protests over the 18th century philosopher's supposedly racist writing . This raises the quintessential question of “what’s next” after all those that are denounced as “cancellation” material have been cancelled, what would follow such an act? Would the world find itself at a cul-de-sac such as the one envisaged by Francis Fukuyama in his “The End of History and The Last Man? ” Or is there something that goes even beyond “Wokeism?” Mr. Rectenwald suggests that there might be lurking a “hyper-woke” to the woke world.
“For some, like the founders of a Facebook page “Beyond Woke,” the phrase means a state of super-enlightenment, living a life devoted to going deeper. Not just being awake and aware of the wool that has been pulled over the eyes of the people, but a continual and ongoing examination of all of life and a commitment to questioning everything. It isn’t just about seeing the veil, but discovering what lies beyond it and seeking both a more enlightened self and a more enlightened society. Not just aware but enlightened. Not just woke, but Beyond Woke.”
For the information of the readers, Mr. Ziad Ahmed did not join Stanford University and preferred Yale instead. OUCH!
July 7, 2020
This was a tough read, but worthy of 5 stars for me. It's a compilation of Rectenwald's writings and speeches over the past few years as he transitioned from Marxist/communist into a liberal thinker, rejecting communism and groupthink. Some of it is pretty academic for a casual reader but not all. The book left me afraid for my country and its traditions and values that have served us so well for almost 250 years. I appreciate his insiders viewpoint and thoughtful presentation.
July 19, 2020
I found this collection of essays by Michael Rectenwald, a former Marxist professor at NYU, to be a tremendous help in explaining how the woke folks sincerely believe the nonsense that they believe. It is extremely important to know not just what someone with whom you disagree is thinking, but WHY that person thinks that way. Rectenwald details the elevation of feelings over facts, why corporations work to be woke (it's not because of the intrinsic idealism of their investors), and the complete takeover of our universities by leftists and Marxists. He includes a description of his own journey from Marxist to libertarian. The journey began innocently enough when he found hilarious the fact that a student at the University of Michigan, when asked to choose the pronoun by which he should be referred (seriously), chose "Your Majesty." His Leftist colleagues were appalled and Rectenwald the heretic was soon excommunicated.
The essays are all recent vintage, some being published as late as February of 2020. There is some repetition and cross-referencing, but I actually found this helped insure my understanding of his theses. He does make reference to his earlier books, so it's possible that if you have read those, you may not need to read this one.
Reading Rectenwald made me feel calmer about the current insurrection taking place in America. It's not that he offers an optimistic outlook nor does he call us to arms, but he does show that the woke culture can be analyzed and understood, and that's half the battle. Hopefully, there won't be a literal one.
The essays are all recent vintage, some being published as late as February of 2020. There is some repetition and cross-referencing, but I actually found this helped insure my understanding of his theses. He does make reference to his earlier books, so it's possible that if you have read those, you may not need to read this one.
Reading Rectenwald made me feel calmer about the current insurrection taking place in America. It's not that he offers an optimistic outlook nor does he call us to arms, but he does show that the woke culture can be analyzed and understood, and that's half the battle. Hopefully, there won't be a literal one.
Read
August 2, 2020This book is an incredibly insightful dive into leftist ideology from an academic standpoint. It explains the reasoning behind why academic institutions are dominated by liberal agendas, and how any opposing views are effectively silenced. Rectenwald articulately exposes the woke mob for what they are. This is a must read.
November 17, 2020
It’s one of the most important books I’ve read, and is a must read for this dimming era as we witness the extinguishing of truth, facts, and reason.
August 15, 2020
Highly recommended. I read his last 2 books as well. This one is a nice collection of essays, articles, and speach transcripts. It touches on some of the stuff stuff in his other books and more. If you haven't read his last 2 books this is a good one to start with, since you get an updated sample of his other stuff and more. It's a really good book to help define and differentiate between the various ideas at play reguarding social justice, wokeness, cultural marxism, etc.
May 25, 2020
6/10.
Decent book by an academic still caught in the cycle of 'publish or perish'. Unlike Brandon Sanderson, who can put out multiple original books per year, there's nothing new in here if you've already read Springtime for Snowflakes and The Google Archipelago.
I strongly recommend those, especially the latter, but what you get here is a collection of speeches that repeats some of the main points of those other works in a somewhat inchoate, sometimes soundbite-y, and usually repetitive form. Glimpses of ideas better fleshed out in his earlier (!) books.
Decent book by an academic still caught in the cycle of 'publish or perish'. Unlike Brandon Sanderson, who can put out multiple original books per year, there's nothing new in here if you've already read Springtime for Snowflakes and The Google Archipelago.
I strongly recommend those, especially the latter, but what you get here is a collection of speeches that repeats some of the main points of those other works in a somewhat inchoate, sometimes soundbite-y, and usually repetitive form. Glimpses of ideas better fleshed out in his earlier (!) books.
February 25, 2021
I agree
Excellent, succinct and humorous. Michael Rectenwald tells a tale that is most likely taking place on many campuses around the country if not the world.
Excellent, succinct and humorous. Michael Rectenwald tells a tale that is most likely taking place on many campuses around the country if not the world.
Read
June 21, 2021everyone needs to read. its a tough read but will wake you up
August 1, 2022
Very good send up by a former leftist of the insanity of the entire woke culture.
April 14, 2021
If you like long books consisting of 100% logical fallacy, this one's for you!
No, but seriously - one of the worst books I have ever read. Forcing myself to read this was a complete waste of my time and energy.
Beyond Woke is written by an old white man with nothing better to do than bully the younger generation and victimise himself. Rectumwald has less than a single shred of credibility.
No one is more of a snowflake than a man who:
- publicly attacked his place of work, spewed hateful rhetoric, and bullied his students on his 'anonymous' twitter under the ruse of anti-PC culture
- then kicked up a fuss after being found out and exposed for attempting to "expose" NYU and joking about students on campus committing suicide
- claimed that he had been 'pushed out of' his job at NYU
- was exposed for lying, as actually his leave from the university was taken voluntarily
- obviously has no idea about the inner workings of the internet and basic etiquette in the 21st century
- writes several books about how he does not understand modern etiquette, why he is a victim, and why any critic of his is 'hysterical' and should immediately be dismissed.
Rectumwald claims that 'social cohesion' and norms are being destroyed by Gen Z and cancel culture. However, he fails to realise the basic concept that social norms are changing and updating constantly throughout history. As the younger generations embrace new technology, this older generation has lagged behind because of their own stubbornness to welcome modern innovations into their modern life. This has led to an epidemic of Baby Boomers who have missed out on a social and political revolution that has been largely fought online. In 2021, where basic etiquette now aims to avoid offending minorities, Boomers who hold oppressive views are facing opposition for the first time in their life. This is not 'silencing'.
According to Rectumwald, he has been 'silenced', but he mustn't have been or else he would have shut up by now.
No, but seriously - one of the worst books I have ever read. Forcing myself to read this was a complete waste of my time and energy.
Beyond Woke is written by an old white man with nothing better to do than bully the younger generation and victimise himself. Rectumwald has less than a single shred of credibility.
No one is more of a snowflake than a man who:
- publicly attacked his place of work, spewed hateful rhetoric, and bullied his students on his 'anonymous' twitter under the ruse of anti-PC culture
- then kicked up a fuss after being found out and exposed for attempting to "expose" NYU and joking about students on campus committing suicide
- claimed that he had been 'pushed out of' his job at NYU
- was exposed for lying, as actually his leave from the university was taken voluntarily
- obviously has no idea about the inner workings of the internet and basic etiquette in the 21st century
- writes several books about how he does not understand modern etiquette, why he is a victim, and why any critic of his is 'hysterical' and should immediately be dismissed.
Rectumwald claims that 'social cohesion' and norms are being destroyed by Gen Z and cancel culture. However, he fails to realise the basic concept that social norms are changing and updating constantly throughout history. As the younger generations embrace new technology, this older generation has lagged behind because of their own stubbornness to welcome modern innovations into their modern life. This has led to an epidemic of Baby Boomers who have missed out on a social and political revolution that has been largely fought online. In 2021, where basic etiquette now aims to avoid offending minorities, Boomers who hold oppressive views are facing opposition for the first time in their life. This is not 'silencing'.
According to Rectumwald, he has been 'silenced', but he mustn't have been or else he would have shut up by now.
April 4, 2024
This book details Michael Rectenwald’s journey from being a Marxist professor to a classical liberal who was pushed out of academia. He details how during his time teaching at NYU the academic rigor was consistently lowered in the name of diversity and social justice. Quick read and some good insights from an insider’s perspective into academia.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews