Andrew Doyle on The End of Woke
Partners:
In The End of Woke, renowned writer and comedian Andrew Doyle traces the rise and fall of the ‘woke’ cultural revolution. Despite the progressives’ language of inclusivity, their approach to political change seems intolerant and illiberal. And if liberalism can be accused of underestimating, if not spawning, woke, the struggle against woke has bred an illiberalism of its own.
Woke politics now appears to have escaped the preexisting ideological confines of the left and right, as both sides have been captured by a cultural revolution that prioritises identity over the individual, and which doubles down on inequity caused by identitarian differentiation. This has seen the emergence of a ‘woke right’ as a mirror image of ‘social justice’ identitarians. Doyle pushes back against such political tribalism, which has fed into the current authoritarian political climate. The End of Woke envisions a civilised society built through tolerance and discussion, not a polarising climate uncapable of debate.
Doyle argues that despite the fading of woke movements, seen in the scaling back of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and the surge of support for Reform in the UK, the fight for liberalism remains. Woke gave power to institutional overreach, as organisations and a new elite have been given the power and the legal framework to shape speech and behaviour, under the guise of reducing weakly defined harm.
Some hope that with Trump’s return to the White House and an increasing loss of faith in the performative politics of the Labour government, real politics might be on the brink of a comeback. Or are we stuck in a cycle of extremes and mutually reinforcing grievances on all sides? With conformism masquerading as radicalism, can there be any hope of generating genuine social change and political movement? Can we make anew the case for tolerance and freedom in the twenty-first century? Is it too optimistic to declare the end of woke, or are we indeed at the beginning of the end of a poisonous ideology?
