Over at Commonweal, George Scialabba reviews Musa al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. It’s a largely negative review. But what struck me the most was Scialabba’s final paragraphs: I don’t mean to dismiss We […]
Wokeness
The “woke right”
Here is Thomas Chatteron Williams at The Atlantic: One of the defining features of the social-justice orthodoxy that swept through American culture between roughly the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012 to Hamas’s assault on Israel in 2023 was the […]
David Brooks: We live in a “soap opera” country. The Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing is proof.
Here is The New York Times columnist: First let me hit you with some realities: Now, if you are holding hearings for a prospective secretary of defense, you would think you might want to ask him about these urgent issues. […]
Roundup: reviews of Musa al-Gharbi’s ‘We Have Never Been Woke’
We may yet run a review at Current, but for the moment, a roundup of representative coverage elsewhere.
The “woke” Left and the Trump Right are possessed
Over the last couple of days I have been teaching the Salem Witch Trials in my colonial America class. So I naturally gravitated to University of Virginia professor Mark Edmundson piece at Liberties titled “The Politics of Possession in America.” […]
Are we past “peak woke?” Nope. Just look at some conservatives.
Tyler Austin Harper argues that “wokeness” is as much about form as it is content. When it comes to form, many conservatives appear to be just as “woke” as the progressive reactionaries they despise. Here is a taste of Harper’s […]
On the “poverty of anti-wokeness”
Over at Compact, writer Geoff Shullenberger reviews five books on “wokeness.” They are: Frederik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement Richard Hanania, The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics Yascha […]
An Australian theologian changes his mind about “woke”
Michael Bird is the Academic Dean of Ridley College in Melbourne. He is author or editor of over a dozen books. Recently, Bird wrote a piece at his Substack page titled “How I Changed My Mind on Woke.” I can’t […]
“Don’t let right-wing culture warriors obscure the fact that some ideas behind this progressive ideology have genuine problems.”
Last week we called your attention to Yascha Mounk’s new book The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time. Today we want to call your attention to a Mounk piece at The Atlantic based on the […]
Nikki Haley is running as a common sense conservative in a political party that has abandoned common sense
Former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley was in Washington D.C. yesterday to speak to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference. Her walkout music was Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” Watch: Like some of the […]
Ron DeSantis to evangelicals: “Put on the full armor of God”
Florida governor Ron DeSantis spoke yesterday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference. DeSantis’s speech might be titled, “Woke, Woke, Woke.” It seems like DeSantis was given more time than the other presidential candidates who spoke yesterday. […]
The Protestant roots of “wokeness”
Harper’s Magazine is running a piece by Ian Buruma, the former editor of The New York Review of Books (read the article to learn why he is no longer the editor), titled, “Doing the Work: The Protestant ethic and the […]
Do journalists have more freedom than professors?
Ross Douthat begins his recent New York Times piece by engaging with the recent pushback against “wokeness” on university campuses. If what is happening on the campuses of Stanford, Harvard, Penn State, Cornell, and Vanderbilt is any indication, and Columbia’s […]
A socialist magazine on “wokeness” and “cultural Marxism”
Conservatives, including Turning Point USA pundit Charlie Kirk, like to scare people with threats of “cultural Marxism.” Here is Nick French at Jacobin: The American right’s long and venerable tradition of red-baiting has always involved branding any kind of efforts at progressive […]
Alan Noble dispels rumors that his new book is about “wokeness”
It’s not an April Fools joke, but it could be. Hilarious:
How U.S. history textbook publishers are catering to Florida’s “anti-woke” laws
Here is a taste of Sarah Mervosh’s piece at The New York Times: In an attempt to cater to Florida, at least one publisher made significant changes to its materials, walking back or omitting references to race, even in its […]
Conservative culture warriors love Antonio Gramsci
For several years now conservatives, and especially the Christian Right, have been warning their followers about the influence of “cultural Marxism.” One of their favorite bogeymen is Mussolini-era Italian communist Antonio Gramsci. Here, for example, is Christian right purveyor of […]
A defender of liberalism and academic freedom opposes Ron DeSantis’s “anti-woke” agenda
Here is a clip from the end of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s “State of the State” yesterday: I’ll let writer and political scientist Yascha Mounk, a defender of liberal values and academic freedom, take it from here. His recent piece […]
Will Ben Sasse, the new president of the University of Florida, bow to Ron DeSantis?
Yesterday was former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse’s first day as president of the University of Florida. We are all waiting to see how he will get along with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, especially as it relates to “wokeness.” Here is […]
Friends of Grove City College apologize to those hurt by the school’s “anti-woke” Board of Trustees
Here is the Facebook petition: The signers of this petition are students, alumni, parents, current or former employees, as well as people concerned with the continued healthy academic environment of Grove City College. We are grieving following the actions of the […]