Eric Kaufmann, The Third Awokening: A 12-Point Plan for Rolling Back Progressive Extremism, Bombadier Books, 2024, 418 pp.
Eric Kaufmann, author of Whiteshift and professor of politics at the University of Buckingham, has written a new book on “wokeness.” He argues that it did not come from Marxist radicalism but from mainstream liberal thinking. Therefore, it is not a fad and can’t be reversed without government action.
Prof. Kaufmann explains that unlike liberalism, which calls for equal treatment, “wokeness” demands equal outcomes. Since people are far from equal, they end up with very different lives. Wokeness finds this unjust and tries to correct it, often through illiberal means.
The author thus distinguishes “cultural” socialism from economic socialism or communism. Most on the Left no longer want a centrally planned economy, but the idea that it is unfair when some groups do better than others is not limited to woke activists. Most liberals accept it; the woke are just more aggressive about taking this idea to its logical conclusion.
Political beliefs are influenced by emotions, and Mr. Kaufmann explains that a bias towards minorities and against the majority has been the liberal norm since the 1960s. Indeed, there is little difference between the feelings of the radical left and mainstream liberals on race. Both are terrified of appearing “racist,” so liberals easily give in to demands for “equality” from radical activists.
The title, “the third awokening,” refers to three points in time when there have been dramatic increases in this type of thinking: one beginning in the mid-60s, another in the late 80s, and finally in 2013. In all three, according to Google Books, there was an increase in the frequency of the words “racism” and “sexism” used in print. This reflects ideology, not reality; opinion polls show no corresponding increases in “prejudice.”
Over the same period, key institutions became more left leaning. In 1964, 48 percent of British academics voted for parties on the Left, but in 2019, that figure was 63 percent. The share voting for the Right dropped from 35 to 17 percent. In the US, the Left-to-Right ratio increased from 1.5 to 1 in the 1960s to 6 to 1 in 2010. Among US journalists, the ratio increased from 1.5 to 1 in 1971 to 4 to 1 in 2013.
Professor Kaufman includes a graph showing political campaign contributions from 1980 and 2018, sorted by occupation.
Of the 12 occupations shown, only agriculture now leans Republican, and most of the shifts to the Democrats have been since 2000. Among the most left-leaning are school teachers, academics, and tech workers.
Mr. Kaufmann criticizes Douglas Murray’s War on the West, which argues that Western self-loathing is largely the result of a decline in religion. The West is increasingly secular, but this trend is an older than anti-racism. Further, religion is no defense against wokeness today, at least in the United States. The 2016 American National Election Survey included several questions on white guilt, and Christians were no less woke than atheists, all else being equal.
The author also rejects the thinking of anti-woke writers Christopher Caldwell and Richard Hanania, who argue that the current anti-white trend is driven by laws such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Reagan administration cut the bureaucracy in charge of “antidiscrimination” and reduced enforcement, but major corporations did not roll back diversity initiatives. Instead, they urged the President to continue them and filed court briefs to support them. Mr. Kaufmann argues that “cultural socialism” had become part of elite thinking by this point, and corporations were keen to show how well they fit in.
The strength of this movement is so strong it drives people to break the law. Many states have banned affirmative action but it doesn’t stop. After California passed a ballot initiative in 1996 banning public-sector racial discrimination, the percentage of minorities in elite colleges dropped somewhat, but administrators found new ways to discriminate and meet racial “benchmarks.”
Mr. Kaufmann has been in departmental meetings in Britain where activists explained that “we would have to break the law” but then argued for discrimination in favor of hiring minorities. He says the same thinking leads to restrictive campus speech codes, some of which have been struck down by courts.
Mr. Kaufmann sees a connection between the “awokening” and a dramatic increase in mental illness among young people, especially women. Respondents in one survey were asked, “How often would you say that you experience racism in your daily life?” The more mentally ill respondents were, the more likely they were to perceive racism. They were also more likely to have woke complaints about other races: Chinese Americans were “racist,” and Hispanics were “sexist.”
Researchers have developed a scale to measure perceived victimhood, asking respondents their opinion on statements such as “I feel that other people don’t hesitate to take advantage of my weaknesses.” One study found a close correlation between high scores on the victimhood scale, bad mental health, and woke views on race and sex. Women are more likely to be both mentally ill and woke. Mr. Kaufmann argues that identifying as a victim inclines people to identify with other “oppressed” groups. He traces this to mainstream liberals, who have expanded definitions of “trauma” or “bullying,” which mean many people can claim to be “victims.”
Wokeness is especially common in college, but Mr. Kaufmann argues that this is not due to indoctrination. In his own survey of British young people ages 18 to 20, he found that those who intended to go to college had similar positions to those who were already attending. He argues that indoctrination starts in grade school, where “social justice” is taught as fact.
Among the general population, support for political correctness is not as strongly connected with having a degree as with age; younger people are more woke. The author’s own research shows that 30 percent of British people 18–25 thought J. K. Rowling should be dropped by her publishers for criticizing transgenderism. Only 11 percent of those 35–44 and 2 percent for those 55–64 thought so. Forty-five percent of a sample of American academics thought it acceptable to shout down an offensive speaker, while 62 percent of undergraduates did. A full 63 percent of faculty members 35 or under agreed.
Asked in 2020 whether they would support any of 16 proposed policies, a full 76 percent of Americans identifying as liberal endorsed affirmative action for museum collections, 71 percent supported changing the national anthem, and 70 percent wanted a new constitution “that better reflects our diversity as a people.” Fully a third of liberals would like to rename the country. Numbers were higher for the “very liberal.”
Mr. Kaufmann emphasizes the climate of fear wokeness has led to, which he says is worse than the McCarthy era. In both periods, about 150 academics lost their jobs due to their views. However, in 1954 only 13 percent of people reported that they felt less “free to speak your mind” than in the past, while since 2013, that number has been at least 40 percent.
Senator Joseph McCarthy poised to sweep communists out of government, 1954. (Credit Image: © JT Vintage via ZUMA Press Wire)
A 2022 survey showed that 71 percent of Republican academics at top universities feared losing their “job or reputation” because someone took exception to “something you have said or done.” Forty-one percent of Democrat academics had the same fear. A 2021 survey found that three in four students “agreed that a professor who says something students find offensive should be reported to the university.” Among left-leaning students, the number was 85 percent.
There is some evidence that wokeness peaked in 2021, and Mr. Kaufmann’s personal experience suggests this. He was subject to four investigations between 2018 and 2022 for offending woke sensibilities, but notes that attacks on social media “began to ebb” after 2021. New student groups were founded to defend free speech and editorials in mainstream media complained of “progressive” excess.
Mr. Kaufmann says that the US and Britain have shown more spine than Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Conservative groups in the latter three call for cutting taxes and regulations and do little to defend their heritage. In the US, several states have banned DEI in the public sector. Mr. Kaufmann offers several reasons for his belief that unlike the McCarthy era, wokeness will not wane without government action.
First, the woke are not a student fringe, but have positions of power and the sympathy of the entire Left. Their demands are merely an extension of liberals’ long-established preference for minorities. Second, activists do not grow out of it. In the US, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, Millennials in their thirties are just as left-wing as they were at age 18. They are unlike every other generation, which has became more conservative.
The latest survey results from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression show that the percentage of students who support shutting down offensive speech continues to rise. Over half think stopping other students from attending an event is acceptable, up from 37 percent two years ago. Thirty-two percent think violence is justified to stop an offensive speech.
Mr. Kaufmann convincingly shows how far wokeness has gone, but doesn’t propose much to fight it. School curricula are “anti-white,” but he would not support a pro-white curriculum. Instead, he suggests that minority groups must simply be included in a more even-handed way, whatever that means. He opposes current race preferences, but says diversity is a legitimate goal in hiring; it just needs to be more balanced and include factors other than race. Nothing in his proposals solves the real problem.
In Britain, the book’s title is Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Produced a Cultural Revolution. However, Mr. Kaufmann carefully observes the taboo. Without honest discussion of race differences, the only explanation for dramatic gaps in wealth or incarceration is “injustice,” which justifies wokeness.
We cannot match the madness of the woke, but we need passion to oppose them. White identity is inspiring in a way that appeals to fairness are not. The races are different, and our survival is supremely moral. Without race realism and white identity, we can expect wokeness to continue advancing at whites’ expense.<
