Description
If you’re woke, you’re left. If you’re left, you’re woke. We blur the terms, assuming that if you’re one you must be the other. That, Susan Neiman argues, is a dangerous mistake.
The confusion arises because woke is fuelled by traditionally leftwing emotions: the wish to stand with the oppressed and marginalized, to address historic crimes. But those emotions are undermined by widespread philosophical assumptions with reactionary sources. As a result, wokeism conflicts with ideas that have guided the left for more than 200 years: a commitment to universalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress. Without these ideas, the woke will continue to undermine their own goals and drift, inexorably and unintentionally, towards the right.
One of the world’s leading philosophical voices, Neiman calls with passion and power for the left to return to the ideals that built the best of the modern world.
Book Information
ISBN 9781509564101
Author Susan Neiman
Format Paperback
Page Count 176
Imprint Polity Press
Publisher John Wiley and Sons Ltd
Weight(grams) 227g
Reviews
-
Left is Not Woke
'Left is Not Woke' should be required reading for all those on the Left - and the Right of politics. It makes a refreshing change to much 'woke' literature. Neiman reminds us that Universalism should be key to genuine left-wing thinking - and that the Left should reject the cult of victim-hood that pervades Identity politics today. The dubious theories of Foucault and Carl Schmitt are discussed and rejected. This concerns their ideas on power, particularly. The book is clear and relevant to understanding the so-called 'culture wars. today.
