By James Pew
The solution to the problem of wokeism will not come easy, and it will not be quick. Those who are pushing back against this illiberal scourge should prepare themselves for a long battle. A struggle that may end up being multi-generational in scope. Indeed, we may simply be building a foundation of resistance upon which our children will someday be required to construct the next level - that is, if the future of the West is to remain bound by Liberalism.
I don’t want to imagine a future, however distant, without liberty. A future of collective authoritarianism (the direction the woke ones wish to take us). This I believe, is a shared value I have with most of the readers and contributors of Woke Watch Canada. The important question then, is what can be done to resist the woke movement?
Before I attempt to answer that, let me make a comment or two on why I think this problem has persisted so insidiously. The West’s vulnerability to radical subversion is not only due to the inherent freedom and openness associated with a liberal society. The problem has been compounded by weak and unprincipled leadership within all pillars of society, an emergent hostility to tradition (read Oikophobia), and a failure of the public education system to instill what I call a ‘historical sense.’ Gratitude as well, is at all time lows. These themes were covered in my melancholic and cautiously hopeful soliloquy, Will We Know What We Had After It's Gone? : Finding Gratitude for the West.
When leaders do not prioritize principles - and in many cases, don’t really have strong beliefs about anything - citizens are not provided an adequate model, and the society is not provided a pathway that holds a guiding light.
It is both principles, and a deeply developed historical sense, that can provide a guiding light necessary for citizens of a lost society to find their way back to the liberal course wisely set by their forefathers. These principles (read liberal principles), and this ‘historical sense,’ you would think, would be instilled in children through public education. But sadly this is not happening. The opposite is true, children are being taught that certain foundational precepts upon which liberal society is set are racist, exclusionary, or problematic in some way. They are also being taught a modern and grossly ahistorical version of history (think postcolonial theory). The situation is shameful and devastating.
Many parents feel a duty to imbue their children with their own values and principles, and to fill their children's imaginations with the illustrious histories of Western liberal societies - how they came to be, what principles they were founded on, why they succeeded, and what they are becoming. However, always looming in the background, is that parents need to de-indoctrinate their children from the foolish and unprincipled nonsense woke activists have planted throughout western education systems. Nonsense some teachers insist is science, and who tell their students that parents who say otherwise are bigots.
I’m not trying to suggest that I have the answer, that all we have to do is get principled and learn history. The truth is, the counter-woke resistance will be multifaceted. It will need to assert its presence and push-back in many domains. The resistance will need Not Woke Warriors of all stripes. However, today's post is about what myself and other Woke Watch Canada contributors are doing for the counter-woke resistance. It is my firm belief that, far from the only role, we never-the-less have a vital one to play.
The concern is sense-making and knowledge production. In both these areas, our society is going through somewhat of a crisis. Wokeism has infected the institutions responsible for sense-making (the media) and knowledge production (institutions of education). There is an enormous amount of ideologically captured literature (information) and media reportage constantly produced that does not objectively reflect or seek to understand or explain society as it is. This is an existential crisis where truth and reality are deliberately distorted with the intention of re-educating westerners away from liberal principles.
Wokeism is revolution. It is an abrupt break with continuity, and a vicious assault on permanence and tradition. It is the use of social justice ideology to dismantle and discard time-honoured liberal principles. It would be bad enough if it were just the arrogance of a single generation insulting what took the efforts of thousands of previous generations, but it is far worse than this. Not only do the woke demonstrate the most narrow, cherry-picked, and politically biased conception of history, in doing so, they castigate and reject the guiding principles of the peaceful, prosperous and abundant liberal societies of the West. Why would anyone want to throw away a map, or a manual, with all of the details and instructions on how to build and maintain democratic and liberal associations amongst those sharing the “imagined community” of a nation? Wokeism is pure madness.
But I digress. Earlier I asked, what should be done to prevent the woke movement? Again, I can only answer for what myself and Woke Watch Canada can do, is doing, and remains committed, to prevent a future nightmare woketopia.
We research. We write. We organize. We expose.
This is counter-revolutionary resistance and a primary concern is knowledge-production and sense-making. Woke Watch Canada intends to continue (and to vastly expand) producing objective knowledge and sense making. With the collaborative efforts of many writers and researchers, we pledge to continue producing heaping boatloads of riveting analysis and objective truth-seeking.
We will also continue to publish the stories of those subjected to the injustices of wokeism, and expose the subversive illiberal machinations of woke actors. Whether in the education system, or any other sector of society, we will give voice to those willing to speak out against the woke indoctrination and illiberal subversion so many Canadians, and westerners in general, are experiencing in their work places and schools.
Producing objective analysis guided by liberal principles, exposing the illiberal subversion of radical woke activists, and supporting and catalyzing counter-woke resistance is the work that Woke Watch Canada is deeply engaged in.
Why is counter-woke resistance so important?
The woke are flooding society with tainted knowledge - anti-science, anti-human, ahistorical, unprincipled, divisive nonsense - the mandate of Woke Watch Canada (and my personal life mission) is to counter their postmodern relativistic speculations and ahistorical theories with traditional scholarship guided by the tenets of objective empiricism, the scientific method, and philosophically grounded argumentation rooted in the traditions of the liberal sciences. Simply put, the mission is to flood their lies with truth.
By discussing and instructing on the importance of liberal principles, and connecting this to a larger discussion of history, the aim is to inspire in readers both a sense of the fail-safes of western traditions, and the historical context wherein they sit. Readers of Woke Watch Canada will gain, at least in part, the historical sense required to sniff out the illiberal subversion of woke agitators, and be provided with an antidote to the rampant cultural dysphoria and self-loathing oikophobia spreading throughout Western democracies. The Great Illiberal Subversion series (an ongoing series written by myself and anonymous historian Mr. M) is a good example of this.
Next year Woke Watch Canada will become an even stronger beacon of hope, organizer of counter-woke resistors, source of sense-making & truth-telling, and producer of objective knowledge. Our community of supporters will continue to grow exponentially, and our message will disseminate to even further reaches of these formerly great western societies torn by the destructive impulse of authoritarian collectivism.
This moment we are in is deadly serious. Make no mistake about that. But there is much to be hopeful for. There are many great Not Woke Warriors who are organizing and pushing back. (Ask me about Lighthouse.) Woke Watch Canada has a plan and we have what it takes to execute it. Make no mistake about that too!
A small change, and a new way to support Woke Watch Canada
From the beginning, Woke Watch Canada has offered all of its content free of charge. And we remain committed to keeping it that way. Our goal is to be read, shared and discussed widely. The best way to ensure this is to not put up any barriers for those wanting access. However, for the first time, I have turned on the monetization feature. This gives Woke Watch Canada readers a way to support our cause financially, if they are able to do so. However, we love and welcome all readers whether paid or non-paid subscribers.
Supporting Woke Watch Canada means more research, writing, and organizing counter-woke resistance. From now on, all posts will contain a tiny message at the bottom asking readers to consider upgrading to a paid subscription. If you are not able to now, perhaps at another point in time you will be. In the meantime, reading and sharing the work is an enormous help to us so please do all you can to spread the word about Woke Watch Canada as broadly as you determine reasonable.
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Thanks for reading! For more on Western history and Principles, read - Subversion of Meaning: Rediscovering Canadian Principles
I agree with all you are saying. BUT, and a fear I will hear the eyes rolling, the word God, or Judeo-Christian values was not mentioned along with tradition. I believe the dismantling of a faith-based society, the destruction of the family, is the main tenet of wokeism, i.e. collective misery living in a ditch. Wokeism denies there are intangible values or ideals of living for your personal belief in a Creator who loves his Children. They squash any idea that reveres the rights of individual freedom.
A good article. Where I would tread carefully is in the critique of the “emergent hostility to tradition”. I am a critic of much tradition because a good proportion of it is outmoded and deserves to be challenged and undermined. We should welcome that ongoing process of modernization — it is quite different from the anti-enlightenment posture of the postmodernists, so we need to distinguish the two. I think your reference here to woke “cherry-picking” implies this distinction.