Developing an Even More Accurate Definition of Woke
It is actually very simple when you realize it
In recent years, people who are critical of ‘woke’ have often been asked to define the word woke. Personally, I have always defined it as a kind of activism rooted in postmodernism and critical theory, which when taken to its extreme logical conclusion, effectively becomes what I call critical anarchism. Other people have tried to use a less technical definition, like when progressivism becomes either absurd, inhumane (as in cancel culture for example), or both. This sounds easier to apply in reality, but could be too loose of a definition. I believe it is important for ‘woke’ to have a robust definition, because firstly, we need to know what we’re talking about, and secondly, if we don’t define it well, woke could literally come to include anything someone doesn’t like, which could then lead to its meaning to be diluted by reactionary culture warriors falsely labeling everything too progressive for them as ‘woke’. The question then becomes, could there be a more simple, intuitive definition of ‘woke’ (that doesn’t have to reference specific academic theory for example), but is still robust enough to prevent misuse and dilution?
It turns out there is. The definition we will end up with is actually going to be very simple, but in this article, I will go through the steps to derive it properly. Let’s start with postmodernism and critical theory first. The question we need to ask is, what is the nature of these theories? They are basically generalized methodologies, with certain underlying assumptions, used to examine various issues, or the whole of society, or even the whole world. This is not surprising, because they mainly emerged in the context of academia, where generalizable methodology is highly prized (over-prized, I would argue). You need to understand that much of academic work, in any given field, consists of repeatedly using the same or similar methodology to examine different problems, or similar problems in different contexts. This means generalizable methodology is going to be reused again and again, thus rendering them established and authoritative in their particular field of study. I believe this was how postmodern philosophy, critical theory, and products of their cross-breeding became so established.
The problem here is that, even if a generalized methodology is repeatedly used, and its use is widely accepted by fellow academics during a particular time, it doesn’t automatically mean that it is objectively correct to use. After all, it is not impossible that a particular methodology, a particular way of examining things, is only valid and accurate in a particular context, and not generalizable to other contexts. Here, a crucial difference between more scientific or more evidence-based disciplines on one hand, and more philosophically-driven disciplines on the other hand, must be acknowledged. The former relies on hard data, and inappropriate application of methodology, or the assumptions underlying methodology, would soon be exposed by inconsistencies or unexpected findings in the results. The more hard evidence or data-based the discipline is, the more likely this is to happen. Indeed, in highly quantitative disciplines, it would be easy to observe whether a relationship between variables, that was previously found to be valid within a certain range of values, could be validly extended beyond that range. (In quantitative analysis, there is also the rule that any relationship derived from a particular dataset cannot be automatically extrapolated beyond the range of that data.) On the other hand, disciplines that are high on philosophy and low on demand for hard evidence would have a much more difficult time self-correcting this way. Relationships between things, and assumptions underlying methodologies used to examine things, can often be infinitely extended without being challenged by empirical reality. I believe it is here that postmodern critical theory has gone wrong, and developed a misguided view of societal relations.
Therefore, the problem with postmodern critical theory is one of extending previously established assumptions and methodologies beyond what is supported by objective evidence. Hence, the problem with what we call ‘woke’ is the over-generalization of findings from particular contexts, without evidence that this generalization is objectively valid. The definition of ‘woke’ then becomes ‘over-generalization without objective proof of validity’. I also think using ‘woke’ to refer to this over-generalization is quite intuitive too, because it could give people the false impression that they have newly woken up to some profound truths about society and human relations, when all they have done is gone through some objectively unsupported philosophical exercise in over-generalization. Thus ‘woke’ represents a false sense of being awakened to new truths when those ‘truths’ are not supported by objective evidence.
It appears that this definition of ‘woke’ can actually capture all sorts of phenomenon we now classify as wokeness. Clear examples include how all men are participants in patriarchy, or how all white people are complicit in systemic racism. Notice how ‘some’ becomes ‘all’ in these cases, i.e. over-generalization. Another good example is how critical race theory extrapolates individual examples of systematic discrimination like redlining and biased policing into an overarching systemic racism (note the important difference between systematic and systemic here: the former refers to individual cases of predictably occurring biases within society, while the latter refers to a supposedly overarching system encompassing the whole of society within it). While systematic racial biases do objectively exist in some areas of society, there is no objective evidence to support their extrapolation to a society-wide system of racism. What’s doing the work here is not objective evidence, but philosophy alone. Once you embrace the idea that there is a society-wide system of racism, you not only lose sight of the actual problems that need to be fixed, you also start dividing society into oppressors vs oppressed, thus making the consensus needed for reform impossible to achieve. This is why wokeness is usually an own-goal in the end.
Another example is in the philosophy of gender. As I often say, the existence of gender identity, particularly a gender identity opposite to genetic sex, in trans people is an objective, empirical fact, because its existence has been confirmed by observations in clinical medicine over many decades. Moreover, this identity, and the associated gender dysphoria, is not in any way a symptom of psychosis or other mental illnesses, and this is again proven by decades of observation in clinical medicine. (This is true whether reactionary culture warriors like it or not, to deny it would just be dishonest.) However, the objective existence of trans people whose gender identity is different from their genetic sex, and the fact that they are not suffering from psychosis, does not provide evidence for this also applying to the rest of the population who does not suffer from gender dysphoria. It could be the case that trans people are the exception to the ‘norm’ that genetic sex and social gender are highly correlated (indeed the objective evidence would support this). It is normal for exceptions to the norm to exist, and this should be accepted by any scientific-minded person, but to extend what applies in exceptional cases to the rest of the population, which is what queer theory does, would not be supported by the objective evidence. Again, it is not objective facts that are doing the heavy lifting here, but philosophy alone. Hence, while the existence of trans people and gender dysphoria is supported by objective evidence, the idea that gender is entirely socially constructed and can be ‘fluid’ for almost anyone is an over-generalization that is not supported by the evidence, and hence ‘woke’.
The two aforementioned examples also demonstrate the problem with wokeism. It is much easier to convince people to accept things that can be objectively demonstrated to exist (like instances of systematic discrimination or the existence of trans people), and to address problems that can be objectively defined (like biased policing or discrimination against trans people). Getting people to fix objectively observable problems should be the aim of social justice movements. On the other hand, it is much harder, if not impossible, to demand that people acknowledge what can only be ‘proven’ by philosophy, let alone fix problems that are defined by philosophy alone. Wokeism is when social justice movements confuse objectively existing problems with philosophical phenomenon that are the result of over-generalizing and over-extending findings from limited contexts. This serves to confuse the picture, and invalidate even the objectively valid demands. This is the biggest problem with wokeism.
In conclusion, this article demonstrates that the simple definition of ‘woke’ as over-generalizing findings about societal relations from limited contexts would basically cover all of what we commonly understand as woke. The use of the word ‘woke’ is also intuitive here because this over-generalization would lead to a false sense of being awakened to new realities, when all that has happened is uncritical acceptance of philosophy not supported by evidence. From this, we also see how wokeness harms social justice movements, which is why it needs to be urgently critiqued.
Originally published at https://taraella.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
