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Andrew Doyle

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“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 that undergird society. This is why intersectionality plays such a significant role within the discourse of Critical Social Justice.”

“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 Velley tech giants or societal pressure (colloquially known as cancel culture)- is therefore necessary to guarantee social justice.”

“The religion of Critical Social Justice, in other words, is a hydra with many heads. When one encounters someone who speaks in the familiar slogans of intersectionality, one can almost always predict their opinions on a whole range of other subjects. This is why the shorthand of -woke- has become so useful to encapsulate a range of interconnected identity-obsessed movements.”

“Just as the symbol of Christ's crucifix encapsulates the triumph of the victim and has been exploited historically as a means to exert power over others, the rainbow Pride flag now serves a similar function.”

“The struggle for gay rights was about equal treatment before the law and making visible those whose persecution by the state had driven them into the shadows of society. Now that equality has been achieved, Pride has descended into a corporate orgy of identitarianism. The rainbow flag and all its tawdry spin-offs are a marker of virtue for companies that wish to sell products to the gullible and declare their commitment to -diversity and inclusion-.”

“It is only through reckoning with the truth that we might seek to ameliorate the many inequalities of our world. For all the emphasis on -lived experience-, objective truth still matters. We should be wary of those who tell us otherwise in order to preserve the delicate scaffolding of their pseudo-reality.”

“Most of us who champion free speech also believe in the idea of etiquette and the social contract. We simply do not believe that such parameters should be legally enforced by censorship or compelled speech diktats.”

“Collective guilt, the damaging impact of cultural appropriation, our servility to amorphous power structures, the primacy of identity politics; all of these concepts and more are now uncritically accepted by many of those in positions of authority. When politicians use phrases such as 'white privilege' and 'systemic racism', for instance, they are deploying the language of Critical Race Theory without necessarily understanding the full implications of the ideas behind the buzzwords. They are the unsuspecting agents of applied postmodernism.”

“That racism still exists is taken as evidence of the failure of the liberal project, but of course nobody has made the case that it has been eradicated. If a disease is cured but a few symptoms linger, one does not claim that the treatment was ineffective. Social liberalism is an ongoing process because it recognizes the imperfectability of human nature.”

“Whereas democracy is founded on the negotiation of diverging viewpoints, ideology is sustained through intolerance of dissent. You are, as the saying has it, either with us or against us. This is the essence of bigotry.”

“The ongoing culture war, whose existence if often denied by its chief antagonists, is no longer something that any of us can afford to ignore. Culture warriors have always been small in number, but lately, they have inveigled their way into positions of power and influence. As a result, the sphere of combat has extended into our homes, our schools, our places of work. Families, friendships and other relationships have been ruined. Many of us would prefer not to participate, but weapons have been forced into our hands. Culture warriors threaten to divide us even as they claim to be healing division. They couch their regressive ideas in progressive terminology, and those who attempt to slow their momentum are quickly subdued.”

“For the new puritans, nothing need be explained or rationalized, because objective truth has become subordinated to -lived experience-. Where Marx saw society as an ongoing competition for resources and power between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie (a development from Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic), the high priests of Critical Social Justice see society as stratified according to identity politics.”

“The belief of the apparatchiks of Critical Social Justice - that all our problems will magically disappear once we outlaw certain points of view or words that cause 'harm' - is a utopian delusion.”

“We cannot change the past, but we can learn from it. As platitudinous as this might sound, it is worth reiterating at a time when cultural revolutionaries are promoting a tunnel-visioned approach to history and the arts. An alternative reality based on a denial of the past is no kind of reality at all.”