The raging Corona virus pandemic has not only birthed a humanitarian crisis of profound magnitude, but has also triggered socio-cultural fissures that are expanding every day, threatening to cleave into a chasm. A raft of movements popularized by hash tags such as #BlackLivesMatter[1] #SocialJusticeMovement #ProgressiveMovement etc have proliferated in response, gaining both popularity and endorsement. However, a roiling world has also spawned a new neologism that has at the centre of its philosophy, nefarious notions such as ‘cancellation culture’, ‘self-criticism’, ‘privilege-checking’, ‘public shaming routines’, ‘no-platforming’ of speakers, and ‘safe spaces’.

Michael Rectenwald[2], former Professor of Liberal Studies and Global Liberal Studies at New York University[3] from 2008 to 2019, and a prolific author, in a searing polemic, delivers a scathing indictment – via a series of essays - of, the new “Woke” culture – the neologism referred to above that, contrastingly threatens to obfuscate the very principles that it professes to espouse. A classic case in point being the “cancellation of three authors” in India by the much-vaunted Bloomsbury India publication. Goaded and coerced by a bunch of condescending left leaning ideologues, Bloomsbury decided not to go ahead with a jointly authored manuscript, which its own editors had accepted and cleared for publication. The reasons offered for the volte face ranged from the meek to the asinine[4].

The progenitors of the “woke” culture define it to mean, “the political awakening that stems from the emergence of consciousness and conscientiousness regarding social and political injustice.” However, as Mr. Rectenwald chillingly illustrates, this definition is just a dog whistle seeking to promote an attribute of herd mentality, whilst at the same time trying to avoid opprobrium by paying token lip service to the creed of ‘liberalism.’  Mr. Rectenwald himself was at the receiving end of “Wokeism” at its brutal best (as he recounts in detail in the book), when a “non-conformist” interview given by him resulted in a forced leave of absence, followed by a unanimous ostracization by the faculty at the New York University. The cost of not kowtowing to the taken-for-granted campus orthodoxy ultimately resulted in Mr. Rectenwald resigning from his faculty position. “I was also roundly denounced by an official committee, called the Liberal Studies Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Working Group, who ended their sentencing by declaring: “The cause of his guilt is the content and structure of his thinking.” I have since dubbed them “the Conformity, Inequity and Exclusion Group.””

Mr. Rectenwald argues that the Contemporary notion of social justice is but a pale shadow of its original version. A nineteenth-century Catholic social theory, this principle was envisioned and formulated in the early 1840s by Luigi Taparelli d ’Azeglio[5], an aristocrat turned Jesuit priest. The primordial objective underlying this new concept was enshrinement of a new mode of justice, to supplement and not supplant the already existing ones in the Catholic justice doctrine (commutative, distributive, and legal justice). However, in its current virulent Avatar, the phenomenon of Social Justice envelopes within its ambit, “new (trans)gender theories and activism, as well as notions of “privilege,” “privilege checking,” “self-criticism,” “cultural appropriation,” “discursive violence,” “rape culture,” and so forth.”

As Mr. Rectenwald illustrates with an exquisite blend of satirical wit and methodical research, the Woke phenomenon is not restricted to just a few departments in select Universities. It has spread with a parasitical aplomb to engulf mindsets that now view this more as a norm than an exception. For example, to be accorded an acceptance at most Ivy League universities, Mr. Rectenwald illustrates that the applicant must first transport a sufficient and acceptable degree of wokeness. For example, in “Congratulations!” Rectenwald notes that Ziad Ahmed, a 2017 applicant to Stanford University, responded to the application essay prompt “What matters to you, and why?” by typing “#Black Lives Matter” 100 times[6]. Needless to say, Mr. Ahmad got selected.

In a satirical letter, Rectenwald envisions the Stanford Office of Admissions lecturing Ahmed to “Think of Stanford University as a social justice warrior incubator. Our mission is to produce students who will repeat social justice phrases without hesitation, who will refuse to listen to differing perspectives, and who will serve as carriers of this ideology to the wider society.”

Such a dangerous percolation of forced ideology into the academia does not bode well for the future of liberalism as understood in its original and unadulterated sense. As Mr. Rectenwald elucidates in some disturbing detail, “I witnessed the de-professionalization and de-legitimation of the faculty—hiring policies based on tokenized identity politics and cronyism, an increasing anti-intellectualism and ideological conformity expected from faculty and students, and the subsequent curtailment of academic freedom.” This uncompromising edict of conformity or bust that brooks no meaningful opportunity for debate and defenestrates opposing viewpoints tarnishes the very fabric of democracy.  

Wokeism has also managed to penetrate Corporate Boardrooms. Chieftains of sprawling conglomerates have discovered that “Woke-washing” companies lend a much higher credence than enhancing employee benefits, both monetary and intangible. May employee welfare be damned! Ideology over incentives is the in-fashion and the new credo. In a riveting Harvard Business Review piece published on the 27^th July 2020, and imaginatively titled, “Woke-Washing” Your Company Won’t Cut it, Erin Dowell and Marlette Jackson highlight how statements of solidarity “gloss” over internal inequities[7]. “Organizations such as Whole Foods, Pinterest, and Adidas have all seen public complaints from current and former employees that corporate statements of solidarity glossed over internal inequities. For many workers, such statements from executive leadership underscore how the same leaders who rally for Black lives have fallen short when it comes to addressing these problems. Empty company statements can seem to say that Black lives only matter to big business when there’s profit to be made.” As Mr. Rectenwald articulates, possessed by a bent of “Woke Capitalism” (a term coined by Ross Douthat of the New York Times), these Multinational Enterprises bend over backwards and outdo each other in a frenzied rush to pay obeisance to the paeans of Wokeism.

Mr. Rectenwald demonstrates the behaviour of Gillette to bolster the facet of Woke Capitalism. I refer to Gillette and its “We Believe” ad. Like Nike, Gillette is a subsidiary of Proctor & Gamble. First posted to its social media accounts in mid-January 2019, the ad condescendingly lectures men, presumably “cishetero” men, about “toxic masculinity.” In the provocative ad, three men look into separate mirrors—not to shave but to examine themselves for traces of the dreaded condition.

It is astonishing to believe that for over a decade and a half, Mr. Rectenwald was a proponent of Marxist ideology being a firm Communist himself. His disturbing experience with the Wokeist herd at the New York Times following his posting of a series of anonymous tweets mocking the common college classroom practice of asking students to choose or invent which gender they are and which pronouns must be used to refer to them, induced a transformation in him. This places him in a fantastic position to deliver a critique of the Woke creed that has as its edifice the preaching and promulgations of the two Karls – Marx and Popper, Michel Foucault and Marcuse.

At the time of writing this review, the latest victim to fall prey to the culture of cancellation, has been the Enlightenment Philosopher, David Hume. Edinburgh University's David Hume Tower has been renamed "40 George Square" following protests over the 18th century philosopher's supposedly racist writing[8]. This raises the quintessential question of “what’s next” after all those that are denounced as “cancellation” material have been cancelled, what would follow such an act? Would the world find itself at a cul-de-sac such as the one envisaged by Francis Fukuyama in his “The End of History and The Last Man?[9]” Or is there something that goes even beyond “Wokeism?” Mr. Rectenwald suggests that there might be lurking a “hyper-woke” to the woke world.

“For some, like the founders of a Facebook page “Beyond Woke,” the phrase means a state of super-enlightenment, living a life devoted to going deeper. Not just being awake and aware of the wool that has been pulled over the eyes of the people, but a continual and ongoing examination of all of life and a commitment to questioning everything. It isn’t just about seeing the veil, but discovering what lies beyond it and seeking both a more enlightened self and a more enlightened society. Not just aware but enlightened. Not just woke, but Beyond Woke.”

For the information of the readers, Mr. Ziad Ahmed did not join Stanford University and preferred Yale instead. OUCH!

1. https://blacklivesmatter.com/
2. https://www.michaelrectenwald.com/
3. https://www.nyu.edu/
4. https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/the-bloomsbury-brouhaha
5. https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/the-origins-of-social-justice-taparelli-dazeglio/
6. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teen-accepted-stanford-after-writing-blacklivesmatter-100-times-application-n742586
7. https://hbr.org/2020/07/woke-washing-your-company-wont-cut-it
8. https://www.thenational.scot/news/18717667.edinburgh-university-accused-cancelling-scottish-enlightenment-philosopher-david-hume-following-black-life-matter-protests/
9. The End of History and the Last Man, Penguin; 01 Edition (January 28, 1993)