The New Puritans: How the Religion of Social Justice Captured the Western World

by Andrew Doyle

Censorship First and foremost, ‘wokeness’ is a belief system underpinned by the postmodernist notion that our understanding of reality is constructed through language. Its adherents are convinced that words can be a form of violence and that censorship – either by the state or Silicon Valley tech giants or societal pressure (colloquially known as ‘cancel culture’) – is therefore necessary to guarantee social justice. Power The ‘woke’ maintain that society operates on the basis of invisible power structures that only those who are trained in Critical Theory are qualified to detect. This conceptualisation is derived from Foucault, who saw power as produced by discourses that permeate all society in all directions, and not solely as a top-down phenomenon. ‘Power is everywhere’, he writes, ‘not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere’. Denials of such structures are taken as further evidence of their existence, as anyone who would deny them is likely to be benefiting from the privileges they afford. Society must be reconstructed in order to guarantee equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. In other words, we are talking here about ‘equity’ rather than equality. Identity politics The ‘woke’ see people in terms of their group identity rather than their individual qualities. Race, gender and sexuality – as opposed to class or economic disparities – are taken to be the determining factors when it comes to mapping the power structures t...

Tenants of woke beliefs per doyle