[by Mikhail Kostylev]
"Wokeism does not exist," insists Libération [1], [2], [3]…after having hailed it as a “concept taken up by Black Live Matters”[4]
to "claim a combative and uncompromising stance"[5]. We're at a loss!
Libé is definitely cultivating the art of variable geometry definition. "Cancel culture" is carefully put in quotation marks when a conservative talks about it… but claimed without complexes when we call to “finally cancel Spotify”[6], guilty of harboring a “right-hander.”
Better still, in 2020, the newspaper was outraged that we dared to call “looting” a…looting, if it was a black American who committed it.[7]At this level of linguistic creativity, Le Robert itself bows.[8].
But the most striking thing about these little militant language games is not their outrageous bad faith – it is their repetitive side. We see the same verbal trick coming back a hundred times:
In 2011: "gender theory" (not good) does not exist! There are gender studies (GOOD) "
In 2021: “cancel culture” (not good) does not exist! there is culture of consequence (GOOD) "
Activists perpetually recycle the same recipes. Libé is wrong: the woke movement exists, the proof is that we see it going round in circles.
Progressive ideology, unchanging methods
The lack of inventiveness of Woke is almost shocking, when you think about it. Take inclusive writing: its supporters always repeat the same arguments ("De Gaulle already used it", etc.), always the same attacks on the Academy ("incompetent/reactionary/too slow" ...) ... since the first debates in 2017.
No one decides to change a recipe that works… yet less and less well. Inclusive writing has just experienced two major failures in the private sector[9]. On a more general level, the shift Woke taken by the left seems to have succeeded above all in bringing 8% more French people... to the right[10]. Without seeing any person in charge question themselves...
In another article[11], I had tried to show that, by simple field effect, wokeism is condemned to become more and more outrageous: but it is an excess which always goes in the same direction.
We just push the same rhetoric further – taking a harmless male habit and calling it “toxic,” for example. This trick has been overused so much that activists are struggling to find new things to denounce.
The latest accuses male friend groups of being "toxic"[12], with whom it would be urgent to "put an end to it" (sic). We feel the effort - and the ridicule.
Why then desperately repeat the same tricks when they have lost all effect? We will try to understand the reasons.
Non-mixed-activist journalism
Anyone who has attended a French university in the last ten years knows that the activists there behave like conquered countries. In one year, two ministers have denounced the phenomenon… and paid dearly for it. Wokeism “does not exist,” but it defends itself rather well.
We see less that this is coupled with a quasi-unanimity of the press in their favour – including in the major non-militant national media.
The reason is very simple. Who is entrusted with files on activism within the editorial offices? Woke ? Almost always young journalists… themselves woke.
First, because “gender”, a militant notion, was virtually unknown in France before 2010.[13] – and that at that time, the only pens capable of talking about it were… the activists. We were forced to engage them.
Then, because of current identity obsessions: at a time when a white woman can be forbidden from translating the work of a black woman[14], it has become quite delicate to entrust an LGBTIQ+ subject to a non-LGBTIQ+, for example. The newspaper takes the risk of being attacked on the grounds of " representation ».
If he gives a subject on feminism to a non-feminist, it will be " tokenism[15]". To a man, it will be " mansplaining " or " male gazebo "Let us remember that associations no longer even hesitate to attack homosexual stars for... "homophobia", when they want to get something from them.[16]
Which press boss would dare to take so many risks?
And so the press mainstream prefers to leave woke subjects… to woke journalists. Who profess, let us remember, that "neutrality does not exist", and neither does ethics. The few among them who still respect the rules of the adversarial system are in any case brutally reminded of their rights by woke readers. In an article on hunting, Slate dared to give the point of view of a... hunter: a pack (very human) immediately tried to cancel the article.
This is why the Woke enjoy overwhelming media support – and artificial, because it has no relation to the popularity of their theses or the number of their supporters.
This is how militant fads as absurd as "inclusive writing" find support in national newspapers. Rejected by the population and by the French Academy, based on rather crude historical falsifications[17]…we would expect to find it only in far-left rags. However, the director of 20 Minutes claims to want to impose it on her editorial staff[18]. And Le Monde opens its columns widely to the inclusive.[19] almost without contradiction. When he does not offer an entire double page to an illustrious unknown, who repeats one by one all their dogmas with the originality of a photocopier[20]…this is no longer journalism, it’s advertorial!
The woke are therefore the Midas kings of ideology: the slightest nonsense, if it comes out of their mouths, is presented by the press as gold. And we are surprised that the French people's trust in the media is collapsing.[21]...
The flip side
But like that of King Midas, the story of woke people is likely to end very badly. This overwhelming media support is sheltering woke activists from the truth. Accustomed to easy victories, they are starting to relax. And here are the consequences:
- The woke movement is losing the habit of fighting on the level of ideas.
Controversies become weak or repetitive. Firstly because activists are no longer used to intellectual jousts with their adversaries: they think they can resolve everything by shouting in a pack "homophobes!" and "reactionaries!" in five newspapers at once.
Then, because these adversaries… they hardly see them anymore! The woke have occupied so much media space, pushed their opponents to the margins so well, that they almost never have the opportunity to confront them. They miss the stimulating contact with the enemy.
It is characteristic that most of the "new" woke concepts (intersectionality, gender…) actually date back to the 70s – a time when the movement, as a minority, had to constantly sharpen its arguments in the face of other left-wing factions on American campuses. Becoming hegemonic seems to have cut off any capacity for invention.
– Activists cut themselves off from reality and believe themselves to be all-powerful.
Activists live in a favorable media bubble, where everyone agrees with them. This doesn't really help to keep their feet on the ground, and some are beginning to believe that any "demand", even the most outrageous, will be satisfied.
We are therefore seeing the proliferation of incoherent, even suicidal, militant strategies: like these two homosexuals who, after a GPA abroad, seriously demand from the CAF… a bonus for a pregnancy that did not occur.[22](sic!).
All the more so since the amount of the premium is ridiculous compared to the cost of a GPA: renting out the wombs of poor women is a sport for the rich. The rich are now demanding that this form of human trafficking, illegal in France, entitles them to an allowance….
Pettiness, cynicism and a feeling of being above the law: everything comes together to make them quickly unpopular.
- The incompetents are multiplying
Another effect of this hegemony in the media: it encourages incompetence. In the past, somewhat limited activists were careful not to intervene in controversies where they would have been ridiculed within a minute.
Now that their opponents are deprived of speech, nothing prevents them from investing in the media field, where the most inept of Woke is assured of a platform… to the great misfortune of his own camp.
In general, they have very limited knowledge of their own " theory " and an immense admiration for authors... that they have not read or understood. They vaguely think that doing politics consists of imitating them, that is to say hitting out redoubledly at males, whites and cisgender heterosexuals.
Nothing could be further from the truth: typing seems simple, but the art lies in knowing how to do it. where. The popes of wokeism (Ignatiev, Butler…) accused whites and males of enormous and absurd things, but very cleverly calculated to provoke a maximum political reaction: otherwise, they would never have had so much success. Ignatiev, before inventing “white privilege”, had been a Marxist agitator in a factory for ten years – he knew what to say to stir up the crowds.
The inept activist is therefore like the little boy who sees his father repairing a piece of furniture, decides to "do the same" (that is to say, grab the hammer and give it a few big blows)... and destroys it.
So we see crazy theories appearing about Beethoven's music being anti-LGBT, primary school lessons "promoting toxic masculinity"... outrageous and without political effectiveness - the whole planet is laughing!
I feel sorry for the few serious activists who struggle to stay afloat in this flood of nonsense. It's sincere... and self-serving, because I often have to consult the woke press: and I get much more pleasure from reading, say, Bérengère Viennot than from some bloggers hastily promoted to journalists, mumbling concepts they barely understand.
And that they believe they have mastered, with disastrous consequences: like this Slate pen-pusher who recently went to battle with a renowned anthropologist, armed only with her approximate syntax and a few preconceived ideas. That would deserve a fine, like those who attempt Everest in sandals.
When they don't shoot themselves in the foot. Comic scene on France Inter: in a desperate attempt to make people believe that "iel" had arrived naturally in the dictionary, the woke linguist on duty repeats that "language is not an object that can be manipulated"... unwittingly contradicting her own theories on the "masculinization" of language.
Theoretical sterility, suicidal strategies, the proliferation of inept and blundering activists: the unconditional support of the media, which made the woke movement successful, is now stifling it. Midas believes he has achieved success without effort, but soon regrets it. And ends up no longer being able to hide... his donkey ears.
