WORD GAMES
What Does “Woke” Really Mean?
Definitions vary, but whatever definition you use, the word is needed to discuss what is happening right now
Like pornography, we may not be able to define “woke” but we sure do know it when we see it. It’s an important word, because there’s no other way to describe (succinctly) an important trend happening in society right now.
Words evolve and have many meanings
Many words have alternate meanings, or meanings that differ based on context and who’s speaking, but some progressives have latched on to variations in the term to try to deflect or block debate about the substantive, new ideology we call “woke.”
For example, a writer on Medium recently wrote:
“Woke” has been nothing more than a term used to deflect, and that’s it. It’s meaningless. […] Using words like “woke” is an immediate way for [Republicans] to get the right wing to disregard whatever point the left might be trying to make.
ABC News cites Webster as defining the term as being informed:
To be “woke” politically in the Black community means that someone is informed, educated and conscious of social injustice and racial inequality, Merriam-Webster Dictionary states.
ABC somehow leaves out Webster’s other definitions, including:
politically liberal (as in matters of racial and social justice) especially in a way that is considered unreasonable or extreme
Just as the Eskimos (Inupia, Yupic et al) have 40 to 50 words for snow, Progressive Activists seem to have a lot of words to describe and refine their values, such as “anti-racist,” “progressive,” “woke,” “DEI advocate,” “ally,” “gender-affirming,” “BLM,” “pro-diversity,” “intersectional,” “racial-justice focused,” “anti-capitalist,” and “Socialist.”
The more extreme progressives and their associated bevy of neologisms are themselves rather difficult to pin down. What do these terms all mean, exactly, and what do the speakers mean when they use them?
The definition
So considering that: words change, words have alternate and sometimes vague meanings, and yet we need words in order to communicate with each other, what does “woke” mean? Intuitively, we all know what the word means, and we know who the adherents of the woke movement are.
But in addition to that, I’ll propose a definition, or at least a list of characteristics that run strongly and almost uniformly through the woke movement.
As a quasi-religion, woke-ism has articles of faith, a particular vocabulary, a style of interaction, political and cultural practices, and institutions to support it. Woke-ism is generally out of step with mainstream society, but purports to represent mainstream ideas — or even demand that only woke terms and ideas are discussed. Woke-ism is contradictory, further illustrating its religious and illogical basis.
Let’s look at some of these attributes:
- Articles of faith: Woke-ism includes the idea that everything is either racist or “anti-racist” and there is no neutral. (“You are for us or against us” the woke may say.) Also that racism must be used and re-defined to include “structures” and the traditional definition must be relegated to “individual racism.” Woke-ism demands that racial progress is not acknowledged.
- Vocabulary: If a person uses and accepts any one of the following terms, they likely embrace them all: “anti-racist,” “gender-affirming,” “DEI,” “privilege,” “cisgender,” “Latinx,” “TERF,” “cultural appropriation,” “equity” (vs equality), “heteronormativity,” “BIPOC,” use of the word “harm” to mean hurt feelings, “safety” to mean avoiding hurt feelings.
- Styles of interaction: Woke-ism descends from political correctness, and the typical form of woke is to be a scold. It is therefore neo-Victorian in its intolerance and social rigidity.
- Cultural institutions: Elite universities and the top-tier media outlets their graduates work for institutionalize and promote woke ideas. Bari Weiss illustrated this by documenting her treatment at the hands (or typing fingertips) of her NYT colleagues, for example.
- Contradictory: It required to acknowledge and “have a discussion” about race, but it is also “emotional labor” to invite a Black person to engage on the topic of race. The irrational elements illustrate the religious nature of the movement.
- Cancellation: Broadly embracing the idea that a person can and should be driven out of their profession or polite society for wrong-think on the above topics, even if their wrong-think is not relevant to their job, undertaken in good faith, or walked back via an apology. Those who disagree with woke-ism are labeled as irredeemably “transphobic,” “homophobic,” “racist,” or advocates of “patriarchy” — not as simply disagreeing or behind the times. (Watch the comments replying to this article…)
- Shame-based: See:
- Revolutionary, not incrementalist: Almost everything in the world is getting better, viewed on a medium-term time scale (broader than the past few years of authoritarian turmoil, and perhaps broader than the recent decades of libertarian or “neoliberal” governance in the U.S.). Woke-ism rejects this progress as too slow, and generally invalid, and asserts that the entire edifice needs to be destroyed and rebuilt.
The adherents form a coherent movement with its own beliefs, speech codes, vocabulary, practices, and institutions. Neither the woke adherents nor their ideological adversaries will ever have a precise definition, but the core is clear and even the periphery is reasonably well-defined.
We need the word
People who are critical of woke-ism have struggled to discuss the new movement succinctly, and have tried to introduce a series of terms that never stuck, such as: “the successor ideology,” “the new Thing,” “regressive left,” “cancel culture,” and “social justice warrior.”
Those did not stick, but “woke” did.
“Woke” it is
“Woke” may not be the term I personally would have picked for the new, unhinged, extremist belief system sweeping many of our “best” cultural, political, and educational institutions, but it’s what we have to work with right now.
We need to use the term to communicate with other people. “Woke” is the term people can understand; it is the hashtag and keyword one can use to look things up, and it allows meaningful dialog.
To be sure, the older meaning of simply being “awake” to injustice, stemming from its initial use in the U.S. Black community in the 1930s, still exists and some people will continue to use it that way, but language evolves, and that use of the word is increasingly archaic and irrelevant.
In any case, you can tell which meaning is meant by context.
Woke is a movement or a religion
One reason the term is hard to pin down is that it is a term for a group of people, not a textbook definition, or scientific or even political science term.
As a movement, we have to think of the millions of woke people, and the variety and evolution of their thinking. They share many common beliefs, yet any one idea or belief will be rejected by at least some small percentage of the adherents.
Defining a movement — such as Socialism, Liberalism, Anarchism, Neoliberalism, BLM, or any other — is not the same as defining a word. We have to use a broad brush to speak intelligibly about them and their ideology as a group.
Woke is real. Woke is impactful. Woke needs to be discussed.
I think woke-ism is already on the wane, but woke adherents do have remarkable social power stemming from elite positions in universities, big tech, government, and media. We need to talk about it, and trying to block speech by objecting to the term “woke” is not the solution.
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Please share this with people who may be interested in this idea of what the word means, and I look forward to your thoughtful comments.
