{"id":15510,"date":"2025-05-25T12:07:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-25T02:07:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/?p=15510"},"modified":"2025-05-25T12:07:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-25T02:07:04","slug":"can-we-find-common-ground-between-moderate-leftists-and-wokists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalemagazine.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/25\/can-we-find-common-ground-between-moderate-leftists-and-wokists\/","title":{"rendered":"Can we find common ground between moderate leftists and \u2018wokists\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

A.C. Grayling\u2019s new book\u00a0Discriminations: Making Peace in the Culture Wars<\/em><\/a>\u00a0sees the\u00a0renowned philosopher<\/a> wading into the ethical minefields of ‘woke’ activism, cancellation, and conservative backlash.<\/p>\n

Filled with thoughtful analysis, deep reflection, and fascinating historical detail, Discriminations<\/em> argues the differences between leftist moderates and ‘woke activists’ centrally concern means rather than ends.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s core contribution lies in Grayling\u2019s searching examination of \u201cothering\u201d. This allows him to explain the core ethical concern about racism and sexism while simultaneously providing a principled basis to resist the more intolerant strategies that might be used in the struggle against such evils.<\/p>\n

Defining \u2018woke\u2019<\/h2>\n

‘Woke’ and ‘wokist’ now have pejorative implications and are terms used mainly by critics of progressive views. Grayling defines ‘wokism’ in terms of the passionate advocacy of things like: Critical Race Theory in history classes; campaigning for same-sex marriage; educating about diversity in sexuality; supporting medical gender transition; advocating changes in language use, such as with non-gendered pronouns; encouraging Me Too avowals.<\/p>\n

A significant number of identity politics activists, he adds, \u201cpromote no-platforming and cancellation as weapons in the struggle\u201d.<\/p>\n

This last point is critical in the way Grayling pictures the differences between moderate leftists like himself and ‘woke activists’. After all, the list above \u2013 apart perhaps from the reference to Critical Race Theory<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 includes many concerns broadly shared across the political left.<\/p>\n

For Grayling, the differences between moderates and activists are mainly ones of\u00a0strategies<\/em>\u00a0they employ to achieve their shared social justice goals.<\/p>\n

Through their justifiable anger at systemic injustice, he argues, some ‘woke activists’ have been drawn into employing weapons like no-platforming and cancellation. These tactics can sometimes be morally mistaken, especially when driven by online mobs.<\/p>\n

Grayling worries that the use of these practices can \u201cother\u201d their targets, without any attempt at due process and constraints of proportionality.<\/p>\n

A contrasting view?<\/h2>\n

Discriminations<\/em> stands in stark contrast to another recent work on wokism: Yascha Mounk\u2019s\u00a0The Identity Trap<\/em><\/a>. Like Grayling, Mounk is a moderate leftist. Like Grayling, he is critical of woke activism. But that is where their similarities end.<\/p>\n

For Mounk, wokism is not a continuation of traditional leftist civil rights struggles but a sharp deviation from them. On this view, wokism (which Mounk calls \u201cthe identity synthesis\u201d) differs from liberal progressivism not merely in means but fundamentally in ends.<\/p>\n

Mounk sees wokism as committed to three foundational claims: the world must be understood through the prism of identities like sex, race and gender; supposedly universal rules merely serve to obscure how privileged groups dominate marginalised groups; and a just society requires norms and laws that explicitly treat (and require citizens to treat) different identity groups differently.<\/p>\n

None of these are claims about means; they concern fundamental values and goals. For Mounk, woke intolerance \u2013 in the form of cancellation and no-platforming \u2013 is a feature, not a bug. In contrast, Grayling sees online cancellations (when they go wrong) as a betrayal of the traditional leftist values he shares with the woke activists.<\/p>\n

Cancelling<\/h2>\n

Grayling understands\u00a0cancelling<\/a>\u00a0as efforts to \u201cdeprive opponents not only of a platform to state their views, but to deprive the persons and groups themselves of a presence.\u201d This can include social ostracism and getting people fired.<\/p>\n

Discriminations<\/em> contains no detailed discussions of contemporary cases of cancellation and their impacts. This is deliberate. Grayling worries that discussing current cases might invite an automatic identification with the cancelled target. Alternatively, it might counter-productively draw attention to victims who have already been excessively targeted.<\/p>\n

Granting these points, the absence of any case studies carries costs. For one thing, it\u2019s never shown in the book that these objectionable practices are widespread enough to warrant a movement against them.<\/p>\n

Equally, there is no appeal to the reader\u2019s sympathies by examining cases of cancellation through social media pile-ons and the\u00a0human costs involved<\/a>. Unless the reader\u00a0already<\/em>\u00a0believes these practices to be widespread and harmful, they are unlikely to see what all the fuss is about.<\/p>\n

Without examination of actual cases, it also can be hard to know exactly what Grayling is recommending. Grayling believes cancelling\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0often justified. However, he wants to make clear the serious problems it creates in the cases where it is not justified.<\/p>\n

The problem is that different readers, interpreting some of his terms differently, might be led to see an act of cancellation as justified accountability where another reader would see objectionable mob justice.<\/p>\n

\u2018Othering\u2019<\/h2>\n

Grayling defines \u201cothering\u201d as:<\/p>\n

“the practice of treating individuals and groups, typically on the basis of stereotyping and prejudice, as a ground for discriminating against them; and discrimination involves exclusion”.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Othering occurs any time one group of people decides they are different to another group (which they see as the \u201cother\u201d), thus treating that group in a morally different and worse way.<\/p>\n

Racism and sexism are examples of othering and \u201cexclusion\u201d. Grayling argues the goal of social justice is necessarily opposed to all such othering, especially if the exclusion is done without proportionality and safeguards, like due process. (Grayling allows that criminal punishment can be a type of justified othering.)<\/p>\n

Crucially, Grayling argues that acts of cancellation and no-platforming are instances of othering. These practices explicitly involve attempted punishment, shaming and ostracism and often occur without due process.<\/p>\n

Suppose you are a progressive activist concerned about the injustices of systemic racism and sexism. You might have strategic reasons that constrain the methods you use in fighting those injustices. However, your concerns with racism and sexism will generally not\u00a0themselves<\/em>\u00a0restrain the methods you use.<\/p>\n

But suppose now you accept Grayling\u2019s argument that the root social justice concern is not with racism or sexism specifically, but rather with the more fundamental injustices of othering and exclusion. Because cancelling and no-platforming are\u00a0themselves<\/em>\u00a0instances of such things, you now have a deeply held reason not to cancel others (except perhaps in the most compelling cases). You do not want to become the very thing you are fighting against.<\/p>\n

Should we accept Grayling\u2019s argument? There are some worries his notions of othering and exclusion are over-broad, given they capture commonplace practices like national borders and criminal justice punishments.<\/p>\n

Overall though, Grayling shows through his historical discussions that political othering for ideological or doctrinal reasons has caused enormous injustices and even horrifying slaughters.<\/p>\n

It turns out that political and ideological intolerance \u2013 Grayling recounts religious massacres and China\u2019s Cultural Revolution \u2013 has a history every bit as awful as racially motivated massacres like the Holocaust. As he sombrely concludes: \u201ctragedy attends entrenched positions that make mutual comprehension impossible\u201d.<\/p>\n

Grayling stresses it is right to feel anger at the world\u2019s injustices. But a wariness of being drawn into othering should incline us towards what he terms ‘Aristotle\u2019s Principle’: to be \u201cangry with the right person, in the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose\u201d.<\/p>\n

Rights versus interests<\/h2>\n

Grayling adopts a human-rights-based approach as his moral compass, seeing it as a system that can transcend different cultures and parochial outlooks. He endorses the provisions of the\u00a0Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 importantly including the right to free speech.<\/p>\n

Cancelling can impinge on people\u2019s free speech rights. As well as being wrong in itself, Grayling emphasises it\u2019s also a strategic mistake. Activism itself requires free speech and it is unwise to \u201cgift the high moral ground on free speech\u201d to one\u2019s political opponents. (That said, the political right in the United States is currently\u00a0showing itself<\/a>\u00a0to be no friend of free speech either.)<\/p>\n

Grayling distinguishes rights and interests. He argues, \u201cno exercise of any right can deny the\u00a0fundamental<\/em>\u00a0rights of others.\u201d Too often, he insists, figures on both sides of politics interpret their opponents as violating their rights when the opponents are just impacting on their interests.<\/p>\n

Grayling is surely correct that all sides of politics could benefit from seriously thinking through the differences between rights and interests. Setting back someone\u2019s interests is not the same as violating their rights. Interests are inevitably in conflict and always require negotiation and compromise.<\/p>\n

Still, there remains something of an elephant in the room. What if an opponent\u2019s words or actions don\u2019t violate anyone\u2019s rights, but nevertheless\u00a0plausibly contribute<\/em>\u00a0to a world where such violations are more likely?<\/p>\n

Arguably, the problem of political intolerance isn\u2019t driven by a conflation of rights with interests, but instead the ease with which any attack on a group\u2019s interests can be represented as an indirect attack on their rights.<\/p>\n

Does Grayling get \u2018woke\u2019 right?<\/h2>\n

It is a hard task to define an amorphous, contested and evolving concept like ‘wokism’. Grayling\u2019s definition seems to map reasonably onto the original idea of being \u201cwoke to\u201d (that is, newly aware of) structural racism and other inequities.<\/p>\n

But as Grayling himself observes, ‘woke’ is now more commonly used as a pejorative term. The linguist John McWhorter argues<\/a>\u00a0the term has evolved from describing those with a leftist political awareness to referring to \u201cthose who believe anyone who lacks that enlightenment should be punished, shunned or ridiculed.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is very different from Grayling\u2019s understanding of the term. Most of the attributes Grayling ascribes to ‘the woke’ are standard leftist positions. Worryingly, this sometimes seems to prevent him from engaging seriously with what many of the ‘woke’ actually say and believe.<\/p>\n

For example, Grayling reflects on those who say that wokist social justice has been strongly influenced by postmodernism. Postmodernism includes the denial of things like \u201cobjective truth\u201d and \u201cfactual knowledge\u201d on the basis that these are constructs of power and discourse.<\/p>\n

But Grayling finds this confusing. After all, postmodernism seems to undercut the objective values of equality and social justice. He concludes:<\/p>\n

What this suggests is that those who begin with the postmodern analysis of objectivity and knowledge are not actually saying that there are no such things, but that how they have been constituted in the past should be replaced by new and better conceptions of them.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is simply not what the postmodernists are saying. The worry here is that Grayling takes it upon himself to stipulate what another school of thought is \u201cactually\u201d saying, rather than listening carefully to their ideas and arguments, and being open to the possibility that these may differ profoundly from his own.<\/p>\n

Given the book aims to persuade the woke activists he thinks are going too far in cancelling others, the possibility Grayling is misreading their actual position is a concerning one.<\/p>\n

Throughout, he appeals to the importance of democracy, free speech, human rights, the rule of law and due process, and the Enlightenment. He argues from what he sees as empirical evidence and \u201ccommon knowledge\u201d. But all these notions are wide open for criticism (from the woke perspective) that they are inventions of racist, patriarchal, and colonialist systems of oppression.<\/p>\n

As such, Grayling\u2019s arguments may fall flat for the very group he is trying to persuade because he does not take their beliefs seriously enough to engage directly and critically with them.<\/p>\n

So who is right? Is Grayling correct that woke activists are just like him, except they have been led by their shared passions for social justice to indulge in often counter-productive and mistaken strategies of cancellation? Or is Yascha Mounk correct? Is wokism a profound departure from traditional leftist social justice goals?<\/p>\n

Perhaps time will tell.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published by <\/em>The Conversation<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Photo by Atheist Foundation of Australia<\/a>\u00a0(Flickr, CC).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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