The unwoke Woke movement

Why binary thinking, cancel culture, virtue signalling and celebrating victimhood are not, in fact, a step in the right direction

"There are so many ways in which this woke movement is a direct antagonist to spiritual development, to psychological, emotional and physical health and to personal development." - Teal Swan

Much of what I’m seeing in the Woke movement feels profoundly toxic to me - my spidey senses tell me to keep tf away.

The crazy-making thing is that I haven’t been able to eloquently explain why before now. In the video below, Teal Swan nails it by labelling the (extreme) behaviour of the movement as gaslighting.

FINALLY! That explains it.

That’s why it’s so sneaky and insidious - because on the surface of it, the ideology sounds good, right? Sounds like things we liberals care about. But the energy behind it is toxic as hell. What gives??

I've been saying for a while now that the extreme woke movement is founded on the exact energy (binary thinking/ selectively excluded groups / authoritarian ideology) it says it's fighting, and very effectively perpetuating the collective Drama Triangle (victim/perpetrator/rescuer).

Amplifying victimhood, binary thinking, cancel culture and virtue signalling is (to me at least) clearly not a step forward.

Clearly not increasing our capacity for awareness, love and right action.
It's just more of the same; I'm right, you're wrong, I'm "good", you're "bad".

It has nothing to do with awakening, justice, respect or love.

I understand where it comes from and I understand why it's proliferating the way it is. What scares me is that so many people who should know better seem to unhesitatingly be jumping on the bandwagon.

Again, I get it - it's safer there.

The extremists of this movement are abhorrently aggressive, violent (verbally if not physically) and seem to feel justified in destroying people's lives if they don't share the same opinions.

But as with the social behaviour during the pandemic, I for one cannot sit silently whilst witnessing what I feel is a very dangerous cultural movement.

Shame, blame and cancel is not a society I want to live in.

I don’t want to be told what to think. I don’t want to be vilified for having a different perspective from the masses. Like what is this, the Middle Ages??

So I will not jump on the bandwagon. I know my values, I know how I show up in the world - I don’t need anyone else to tell me that I’m a decent human being.

And if, as happened during the pandemic, someone who doesn’t know me decides to hurl heinous insults about my character at me, ok. I believe in freedom of speech (excluding hate speech) so they have the right to say they think I’m a horrible person.

Probably the thing that upsets me most about the movement is that it shuts down intelligent debate. You either agree with the accepted narrative or you’re on “the other side”, which in this case means you’re a perpetrator, and therefore deserve whatever you get…

…in the name of justice…?

And you guys. This is theoretically born of the liberal movement, but it very clearly is not liberal; in fact it has many hallmarks of authoritarianism.

Liberalism is about accepting opinions and ideas that differ from your own. Wokeism shuts down any ideas that differ even slightly from what has been determined to be “right”. It kills the conversation and effectively shuts down the possibility of finding new ways forward (the “my way or the highway” attitude).

The video I’ve linked below from Teal Swan felt like a breath of fresh air - having someone who knows a lot about trauma (and spiritual development) whose opinion I am always interested in, giving voice to exactly my thinking on this topic was reassuring.

So what do WE want?

Broad public discourse. Critical thinking. Curiosity about other perspectives. An unequivocal foundation of respect, always, for every human being and their human rights.

Doesn’t sound far right does it?

To me, that is what the liberal ideology that I grew up with is founded in. But nowadays, saying you believe in the importance of free speech gets you branded a Nazi (and therefore obviously deserving of being cancelled, shut down, fired from your employment and death threats in the mail).

How accurate that accusation is, no one is even interested in.

Being called a racist, anti-semite or Neo-Nazi is the adult version of a stink bomb - you just have to throw one at someone and BOOM! All personal and professional validity, achievement and regard is effectively wiped out.

Whelp, there’s more to be said, but that’s enough for now.